Dr. J leaves LeBron James off his Top Two All NBA Teams
After an interview on Dany Green’s podcast Inside the Green Room, NBA Hall of Famer, Dr. J gave his top two All-NBA teams and notably left out LeBron James.
First Team: Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Elgin Baylor.
Second Team: Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The Dr explained his reasoning, “He’s the guy who has led the charge in terms of super teams. It's reminiscent of how the Yankees used to do all the time. The (Nets) load up and they call it buying a championship. The Lakers are known for doing it too. They’re just buying a championship, man. They’re getting all these pieces.”
Interestingly enough there have been super teams in the NBA way before LeBron James was even born including himself. In 1983, the Philadelphia 76ers consisted of himself, Moses Malone, Mo Cheeks, Bobby Jones and Andrew Toney. All of whom have been inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame outside of Toney. The only difference is the 76ers traded for Moses Malone.
Three players on his first-team were teammates. Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West won the championship in 1969 with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker played together for the San Antonio Spurs for 14 years (2002-2014). They won four championships together in 2003,2005,2007 and 2014. Tim Duncan is a part of the Class of 2020 Hall of Fame class and Parker and Ginobili are not too far behind him.
Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen played together in Boston and won a championship together in 2008. Kevin Garnett will be enshrined into the Hall of Fame later this month and Ray Allen was a member of the Class of 2018.
What Dr. J left out is LeBron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first NBA Finals appearance at just 22 years old in the 2006-2007 season. The roster at the time...Shannon Brown, Daniel Gibson, Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Damon Jones, Dwayne Jones, Donyell Marshall, Ira Newble, Sasha Pavlovic, Scot Pollard, Eric SNow, Anderson Varejao and David Wesley. The only other All-Star on the team was Zydrunas Ilgauskas (2003 and 2005). At the time, the Cavs finished with a 50-32 record, finished 2nd in the Central Division, and 4th best team in defensive ratings. They swept the Washington Wizards in the first round, beat the New Jersey Nets in six games in the 2nd round and beat the Detroit Pistons in six games in the conference finals.
Super teams have been around the NBA for decades but somehow LeBron is the reason to blame.
Also notably left off the list...Kobe Bryant.
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