LeBron James was feeling himself last night after a victory over the Utah Jazz and it’s impossible to blame him for it. Because with the victory, the LeBron and the Los Angeles Lakers clinched the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference playoffs for the first time since 2010, a year in which Kobe Bryant and the Lakers won their second straight championship. After the game, LeBron wanted to remember all of the experts who picked against the Lakers having a top seed, according to a report from Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times.
“Since 2010, right?” James said to The Times. “They said I couldn’t do it.”
“I’ll enjoy this one,” James said, nodding as he grinned. “They said I can’t do it.”
Now, LeBron is clearly doing a little bit of Michael Jordan cosplay here, taking slights against him and extrapolating them into a referendum on his legacy. Now, most experts didn’t believe in the Lakers much as a regular season squad but had them in the top four seeds out of basic respect for LeBron and Anthony Davis. While they were the odds on favorites to win the title, there were legitimate doubts about their validity as a regular season juggernaut. In that, LeBron is right that he did prove many people wrong, even if the expectations to win a championship have always been there.
