LeBron James isn’t making excuses for the Los Angeles Lakers being swept out of the playoffs by the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.
Instead, the four-time MVP believes the difference between the two teams comes down to one thing: talent.
“I understand that. You get caught up in boxing culture and things like that,” James said on the latest episode of his “Mind the Game” podcast. “But at the end of the day, if that’s the case, if that’s always the case, then they’re all failures. Because there’s only one championship every year. I lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy every year with passion and admiration,” James continued. “But I also realized which particular team I was on that year.
“And understanding that this year, we fought and played to the best of our ability as a team, but at the end of the day, if we’re completely honest, our talent got outclassed. We didn’t get outclassed. They didn’t outscore us. They didn’t outscore us. They didn’t outscore us. I feel like we’re just more talented than the Thunder. They just have more talent, and yeah, they probably have more possessions, some IQ that can come into play, but that happens throughout the game and that applies to both teams.
“I felt like there were times when we outsmarted them. But ultimately we failed in terms of talent. The Thunder had a lot more talent than we did. You can obviously lean toward them and understand that. But, yeah, you can’t get caught up in that, especially when you know you’re definitely shorthanded.”
Now, with the 41-year-old James entering unrestricted free agency this offseason, attention turns to his future, but retirement is still a possibility.
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