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Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James is not the same player in his 21st season that he was at the peak of his powers. But the 39-year-old superstar is arguably still among the top five to 10 players in the NBA.
Still, his current state – saddled with injuries and inconsistency from his supporting cast – has his stature around the league in question.
Several former teammates believe players don’t fear James. Channing Frye is not one of them.
“You know who fears LeBron James? Organizations, coaches,” Frye, now working as an analyst, said on NBA TV’s “#Handles” on March 15. [Michael] Jordan, Kobe [Bryant] – and even [Shaquille O’Neale] – they were feared because of the rules, and you had to play them mostly 1-on-1. And so they would embarrass you.
“Bron’s game is not like that, right? Bron’s game is cerebral, it’s ‘winning’. So, know he gonna give you 50, 14, and 13. But it’s not the same. I’m pretty sure there are players that fear him in Game 7s.
“LeBron is almost 40 years old and nobody wants to be No. 1 and play the Lakers in the first round.”
Frye and James spent parts of three seasons as teammates on the Cleveland Cavaliers.
That includes the latter part of the 2015-16 campaign when they helped win the first championship in Cavaliers franchise history.
League rules prohibited zone defense and limited helping and double-teaming until 2000-01, and Jordan pleaded against the scheme, per the Chicago Tribune in 2001.
Mario Chalmers Doubles Down on LeBron James Take
James dominated the Eastern Conference before coming to the Lakers at age 34 in 2018, earning eight straight NBA Finals appearances from 2011 through 2018. But this topic has come up time and again.
Frye was reacting to comments from former teammates Mario Chalmers and the Hall of Famer, O’Neal, from the latter’s podcast.
“I’ve heard players say – including myself – ‘I feared Mike’, I’ve heard players in your generation say they feared Kobe,” ONeal said on “The Big Podcast with Shaq” on March 13. “I’ve never really heard any players say they fear LeBron.”
Chalmers, James former Heat teammate, concurred.
“I didn’t think players really feared LeBron like they did Jordan,” Chalmers said. “I never heard anybody say it. And it’s not that you shouldn’t fear Bron. I just think at the end of the day, Bron has been through so much that he wanted to be liked. So it was kind of like, ‘I’m gonna do things now where like people like me.’
People respect you, always going to respect what he did. But you actually like Bron and want to be a fan of Bron now.
“I think that’s what that was.”
Chalmers added that the way the outside world treated James after leaving Cleveland for Miami “switched” the now-Lakers star’s demeanor some. But the conversation is not contained to James’ former teammates.
Gilbert Arenas Double-Talks on LeBron James
Former NBA players Kenyon Martin and Brandon Jennings were guests on fellow retiree Gilbert Arenas’ “Gil’s Arena” podcast where they all reacted to Chalmers and O’Neal’s comments.
All three agreed that players don’t fear James. Their answers diverged greatly from there.
Martin pointed to players not viewing James as a “killer” on the court, something Bryant and Jordan embodied. Jennings noted that winning is far more important than having other grown men fearing James.
Arenas said it was a referendum on how “mentally weak” the previous eras of the NBA were, saying that the lack of fear for James is due to more players with that killer mentality.
He and James had many head-to-head battles during their careers.
Arenas has raged against eras past before. So this fits with his previous comments. He also noted how much that moment with James got in his head, leading him to seek clandestine assistance to fix his yips at the free throw line.
A person doesn’t have to fear a traumatizing event for it to occur. In this case, James’ mind games in crunch time had their intended impact.
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