“I’m exhausted fighting people about it”- Marcus Spears shuts Iman Shumpert over Lebron James ‘destroyed the game’ comments

LeBron James will go down as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. But as Kobe Bryant used to say – “They don’t hate the good ones, they hate the great ones“. LeBron receives his fair share of hate and criticism. One criticism came recently from LeBron’s ex-teammate Iman Shumpert. However, it came more as a personal pain point of Shumpert, as an NBA fan and not as a player. Shumpert recently said on an episode of Bootleg Kev Podcast – “Bron knows he ruined basketball.”

Marcus Spears however wasn’t going to be the one to take it in his stride. ESPN analyst Marcus Spears came out in the defense of LeBron James, who was accused of ‘ruining basketball’ by Iman Shumpert. Spears showed why LeBron doesn’t deserve all the criticism he gets.

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Marcus Spears argument for LeBron James

Spears said on First Take – “I’m exhausted fighting people about it”. Spears said that LeBron James has been doing playing exceptionally well since he was an 18-year old. Despite the heavy expectations after Sports Illustrated hailed him as ‘The Chosen One’, it never bogged down and he delivered. He took the Cavs to the finals at the age of 22. When LeBron went to Miami Heat, he received a lot of hate and the Cavs fans burned his jerseys. He delivered two championships to the Miami Heat. Despite all the backlash, he returned home to the Cleveland Cavaliers after his Heat-stint and delivered the Cavs their first championship. He left Cleveland again and landed in Los Angeles Lakers, and ended their championship drought too in 2020. 

Spears made all very valid points and facts that fans ignore LeBron haters’ downplay. Shumpert, however, did miss some facts. It was the Big 3 of the Boston Celtics that inspired LeBron to form a superteam. Boston Celtics signed the trio of Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett who eventually led the Celtics to the championship in 2008. After falling several times to this trio in the playoffs, LeBron needed help on his team to capture the ring that had eluded him until then. 

Since then, LeBron has doubled down on superteams or the Big-3 teams. Whether it was returning to Cleveland and playing along with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, or, forming the trio with Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis. The whole NBA started following the same trends and we got to see Kevin Durant joining the Warriors, James Harden joining the Nets last year, and Steve Nash and Dwight Howard joining the Lakers alongside Kobe Bryant.

And, it looks like the trend will continue in the league.

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