The Los Angeles Lakers are entering their first season following the LeBron James era of eight seasons with the team. Luka Doncic is a younger and currently better player to warrant getting the keys to the franchise. However, one former NBA player believes that James messing with other players’ careers should harm his Lakers’ legacy now that the stint has ended.
Kwame Brown accused LeBron of ruining multiple players’ careers via leaking stories to the media and not trying to help them succeed:
“I thought LeBron James was a regular individual, and then I realized he’s a part of a group. LeBron James is a machine; it’s a marketing machine. He’s not an individual. And so, once I realized that, when you go up against a machine, it gives off toxic waste. So what makes it look good? It destroys things around it.
If you look at the careers that he’s destroyed – Westbrook, all the various things before he even started. You got Dalton Knecht because of his son; he didn’t get a chance to develop. And he comes there with Andrew Wiggins as the number one draft pick; they make up stories about him to trade him for Kevin Love.”
Russell Westbrook was the first name mentioned since he had a career harming tenure with the Lakers ending with most of the blame put on him for the team failure. Wiggins and Knecht were also named as young talents who suffered from James being on their franchise.
Breaking Down Each Career LeBron “Hurt”
The overall point of Brown is that LeBron did things and passed blame to hurt each name. Knecht is the strangest one since he did receive playing time and never panned out to earn head coach JJ Redick’s trust.
Wiggins is a unique scenario of a rookie getting drafted to the Cleveland Cavaliers right when they were planning to contend by bringing back James. Love just made more logical sense in every way for Cleveland on a roster with LeBron and Kyrie Irving ready to have title runs.
Westbrook is the one name that does make sense since his career did get ruined on the Lakers. The previous season with the Washington Wizards saw Westbrook averaging a triple double, but he had to settle for bench roles after the Lakers’ tenure. James was the one to request bringing in Westbrook and quickly gave up on him.
Kwame Brown Ultimately Looks Foolish
Brown is one of the biggest draft busts in NBA history after Michael Jordan handpicked him to be the next franchise star of the Wizards. Tension with LeBron sees Brown trying to throw him under the bus for odd situations that didn’t always have to deal with James’ involvement.
Good Lakers players like Austin Reaves and formerly Rui Hachimura spoke fondly of LeBron helping them out. Reaves believes his NBA career would have never taken off if James didn’t vouch for him after being impressed in Laker practices. LeBron has a track record of getting the most out of teammates and elevating them more than ruining careers for fun.
LeBron James Accused Of Ruining Multiple Lakers’ Careers