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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Michael Sykes

Benedict Mathurin said LeBron James is going to ‘have to show me he’s better than me’ and, boy, he’s in for a rude awakening

Ah, to be young. The irrational confidence that comes when you don’t really know anything about anything is absolute bliss. I wish I could get it back.

And, look. I’m not old — yerboi is only 29 years old. But at 19? If I knew what I knew now? I’d probably have viewed the world a lot different back then. But I also wouldn’t be where I am now, so it all worked out.

I say all that to say Benedict Mathurin has an extreme case of irrational confidence and, honestly, you’ve got to respect it.

This dude was just picked 6th overall in the NBA draft and had an absolutely wild path in getting there. He should be confident. He is good. He’s officially one of the best 400 or so basketball players in the world.

But should he be confident enough to call out LeBron James who might be one of the best basketball players ever? Ehhhh, probably not.

Alas. Here he is doing just that.

A lot of people say he’s great. I want to see how great he is. I don’t think anybody is better than me. He’s going to have to show me he’s better than me.” 

Ben. My guy. It’s LeBron, bro. We’ve all seen it. You’ve got to respect this sort of confidence. But at the same time, we’ve all seen how left this can go.

Just ask DeShawn Stevenson or Stanley Johnson or Jaylen Brown. The whole calling LeBron out thing didn’t work out for them at all. Probably isn’t the best idea here, either.

But hey, man. Can you really blame Ben? He’s, like, 12 years old. He wasn’t even around for a lot of that.

Nobody thought this was a great idea. No one.

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