{"id":7425,"date":"2023-11-06T23:48:29","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T20:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/7425\/lebron-james-would-still\/"},"modified":"2023-11-06T23:48:30","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T20:48:30","slug":"lebron-james-would-still","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/?p=7425","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James &#8211; Would still be same player without Miami stint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LeBron James &#8211; Would still be same player without Miami stint\u060c<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-meta\">\n<ul class=\"authors\">\n<li class=\"mugshot-shown\">\n<div class=\"author-img\"><\/div>\n<p>Dave McMenamin, ESPN editor<span class=\"timestamp \">November 6, 2023, 6:46 p.m.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-overlay\">Close<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Lakers and NBA reporter for ESPN.\n<\/li>\n<li>Covered the Lakers and NBA for ESPNLosAngeles.com from 2009 to 2014, the Cavaliers from 2014 to 2018 for ESPN.com and the NBA for NBA.com from 2005 to 2009.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>MIAMI \u2014 With his former team&#8217;s &#8220;Heat Culture&#8221; slogan painted on the half-court in front of him as he rested on a base seat following Monday&#8217;s shooting, LeBron James reflected on what his time with the franchise meant meant to his career which now spans more than two decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I would still be at this level regardless of whether I came here or not,\u201d said the Los Angeles Lakers star, now in his 21st season.  &#8220;Let&#8217;s make no mistake: the four years I spent here were incredible. I loved everything. I loved this franchise, this franchise is top-tier, it&#8217;s one of the best franchises in the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut as far as my career goes, my career was going to be my individual career, because I know how much I put into the game and I know how much I strived to be as good as I could be. [But] as far as what I was able to learn here was second to none, that&#8217;s for sure.<\/p>\n<p>James was 25 when he arrived in South Beach in 2010. He had no championships, two MVPs and an NBA Finals appearance under his belt in his first seven seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers.  By the time he left Miami in 2014, he had increased that total to two titles, four MVPs, five trips to the Finals and two Finals MVPs, and he was instrumental in the Heat&#8217;s 27-game winning streak. in 2012-13 \u2013 the second longest winning streak in league history.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI came here for one reason and that was to <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/win\/\"   title=\"win\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">win<\/a> championships,\u201d James said.  &#8220;That was my only goal. That&#8217;s the only reason I partnered with [Dwyane] Wade and [Chris] Displays.  Because I felt like I couldn&#8217;t do it in Cleveland.  We could not.  &#8230; I tried to recruit guys to come to Cleveland.  I tried to go help the people upstairs and it didn&#8217;t work.  So I had the opportunity to be a free agent, so I did what I thought was best, not only for my career but for me at that time.  \u00bb<\/p>\n<p>James said it was a formative time in his life, not just his career, as he uprooted himself from the only home he had ever known in Northeast Ohio to settle in South Florida.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a culture change for me,\u201d James said.  &#8220;People talk about &#8216;Heat Culture,&#8217; it was a culture shift, period. I was changing everything in my life for the first time in my life. Being able to be here and being able to learn and be alongside D-Wade. , UD [Udonis Haslem] and Spo [Erik Spoelstra] &#8212; these guys who had already won it &#8212; it was really great to be a part of, that&#8217;s for sure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Miami will don its City Edition uniforms when it hosts the Lakers, with &#8220;Heat Culture&#8221; stitched onto the jerseys to complement the specialty court it will play on that includes a message painted in capital letters in the lane: &#8220;Hardest Work. Best conditioned. Most professional. Most selfless. Toughest. Baddest. Baddest team in the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>James, who placed the Heat on a short list of what he considers the model franchises in all sports \u2013 including the Lakers and San Antonio Spurs in the NBA and the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots in the NFL \u2013 said it was a strong team.  culture can only exist if players buy into it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously it starts at the top, but ultimately it\u2019s the guys who are in the locker room holding the guys accountable,\u201d he said.  &#8220;You can make the message come from the top, but if guys don&#8217;t respect it or double down on it in the locker room, then apply it on the field and apply it off the field and be model citizens, or whatever. maybe, then it still doesn&#8217;t matter.<\/p>\n<p>This wasn&#8217;t the first time James mentioned the Steelers this season.  When the Lakers began their road trip with a 120-101 loss to the Orlando Magic on Saturday to fall to 3-3, he compared Los Angeles&#8217; early-season seesaw to Pittsburgh&#8217;s performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re like the Pittsburgh Steelers right now,\u201d James said.  \u201cThe Pittsburgh Steelers have not outscored or dominated any of their opponents this season yet, and yet they have a winning record.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Pittsburgh is 5-3 but has been outscored 163-133 overall and has racked up 2,228 yards on offense while allowing 3,018 yards on defense.  Likewise, the Lakers are averaging .500, but they were outscored by 61 points in the first quarter \u2013 the worst six-game point differential by a team since the Detroit Pistons in 1964-65.  LA also ranks 29th in 3-point percentage (29.7%) and 28th in 3-point catch-and-shoot percentage and wide-open 3-point percentage, according to data compiled from Second Spectrum.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LeBron James &#8211; Would still be same player without Miami stint\u060c Dave McMenamin, ESPN editorNovember 6, 2023, 6:46 p.m. Close Lakers and NBA reporter for ESPN. Covered the Lakers and NBA for ESPNLosAngeles.com from 2009 to 2014, the Cavaliers from 2014 to 2018 for ESPN.com and the NBA for NBA.com from 2005 to 2009. MIAMI [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1252,3157,1132,25,4847],"class_list":["post-7425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-james","tag-lebron","tag-miami","tag-player","tag-stint"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7427,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7425\/revisions\/7427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}