With LeBron James unsure whether he chose basketball or basketball chose him, FS1’s Ric Bucher just wishes the NBA star would start showing some semblance of humility.
James and JJ Redick released the debut episode of their joint podcast Mind the Game this week. And during the podcast premiere, James attempted to detail how he was a sort of basketball savant at a very young age.
“My coaches would just be blown away,” James said while talking about the things he could do as an eight-year-old. “I wouldn’t know where it came from, I have no idea… I think I was born with a sports IQ, and it could’ve been any sport. But I just think basketball was the one that I chose and maybe I was chosen to do that as well.”
This shouldn’t be too surprising. James was famously dubbed ‘The Chosen One’ by Sports Illustrated as a high school junior in a feature written by the late Grant Wahl. If James was told he was “chosen” years before he played an NBA game, it’s not crazy to think he may have bought into the narrative as he reflects on everything he accomplished. Ric Bucher, however, tore into LeBron James for the sentiment this week on FS1’s Speak.
.@RicBucher goes in on LeBron’s “Maybe I was chosen” comments. 👀 pic.twitter.com/3JiEbhF3xO
— Speak (@SpeakOnFS1) March 19, 2024
“I could not hate this more,” Bucher ranted. “There’s a big difference between saying, ‘I am blessed’ and ‘I am chosen.’ There is a big difference between those two. And he said, ‘I am chosen.’ And maybe what’s craziest about it is he said, ‘You know what’s amazing, but I would have been this in any sport that I have played.’
“Come on, man. Would you show just a little bit of respect to those who have done it? Because you’re basically saying, ‘You know what, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes…it’s a good thing I didn’t play football.’ I respect the hell out of what LeBron James has done based on where he came from and what he was given, and I do think he is a basketball savant and he is an amazing individual. But when you announce and say, ‘I am the greatest ever and this is how I became the greatest ever,’ there is no ounce of humility in that, at all.”
Running with James lauding his sports IQ to allege he’s insulting Tom Brady is a bit of a stretch. It’s fair to root for James to display humility as a person, but only when it comes to pretty much anything except for sports. Four NBA championships, four MVPs, 21 All Star selections, and 40,000 points with no end in sight in a career that very well might go down as the greatest in NBA history. And we’re looking for humility?
LeBron James didn’t get to this point in his basketball career by being a humble athlete. And after the media spent the last two decades branding James as the chosen king, it’s hard for the media to now claim he should start being humble about, of all things, basketball.
[Speak]
