During their dominant run from 2015-19, the Golden State Warriors had plenty of run ins with LeBron James. Golden State faced off against James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in four straight NBA Finals from 2015-2018, winning three of four.
The 38-year-old has spent his last five seasons playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. As he continues to age, people tend to forget how much of a force he was in his prime.
Warriors forward Draymond Green recently spoke on James’ dominance, even saying he had teammates that were scared to face off against the 19-time All-Star.
“I personally know people that were scared of LeBron James… I know a bunch of people who were and are in fact terrified of LeBron James,” Green said during a recent episode of The Draymond Green Show. “I’ve seen it. At times I’ve had teammates that were terrified of LeBron James.”
Warriors’ Draymond Green Retorts Mario Chalmers’ Comments
Green’s comments came in response to a recent rant from James’ former Miami-Heat-teammate, Mario Chalmers. The two spent four seasons playing together in South Beach, making four NBA Finals and winning two championships.
That shared experience didn’t seem to matter much when Chalmers claimed that players didn’t fear LeBron, during a recent interview with Playmaker.
“Nobody fears ‘Bron,” Chalmers said. “Nobody’s like, ‘Damn, I gotta go play against ‘Bron tonight.’ Nobody said that. I don’t know why, because I’ve seen people be scared when they actually line up to him, but they’re not scared thinking about that matchup.”
He then compared James to Michael Jordan, who he claimed struck fear into the hearts of opponents unlike anyone else.
“You hear anybody from that era talk about going against Jordan, there’s a fear,” Chalmers continued. “So when you have people that fear a player then that tells you something different already. Jordan is just that guy. Like, everything was, ‘I wanna be like Mike.’”
“Nobody fears LeBron” – @mchalmers15 😳
Check out more of our exclusive interview with Mario Chalmers: t.co/JKHxbCCYPq
Draymond Green Showers Warriors’ Kevon Looney With Praise
Green also recently had some praise for his Warriors teammate Kevon Looney. Looney was tasked with guarding Joel Embiid during Golden State’s March 24 win over the Philadelphia 76ers.
“You just don’t want to give a steady diet,” Green said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “And in the fourth quarter, we just tried to throw different looks at him. We fired a couple of times, we can sent double-teams from the top of the floor, we sent double teams from the bottom of the floor. He caught the ball at the three-point line one time, we sent a double-team. Coach kind of gave us the free will to just fake some hits and then pull back. Just tried to keep him off balance. Loon did an incredible job all night of just battling him. And in saying that, he’s finished with 46 points, but the way Loon battled and just kept a body on him all night, the hope is that you wear him down. And some of those shots that he was making throughout the game, during that fourth quarter, last six minutes of the game, he missed a few of them. And so, just got to trust your defense and trust the process. And we did a good job of that.”
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Draymond Green Exposes Warriors Teammates While Praising Lakers’ LeBron James