J.J. Redick Unloads on Critics of LeBron James
LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring mark Tuesday night.
Still, there are some who don’t believe James should be labeled as a great scorer. ESPN’s First Take had a segment questioning James’ rank among the greatest scorers in NBA history.
J.J. Redick unleashed on these analysts in his podcast, The Old Man and the Three.
“I just want to point a couple things out,” Redick said. “He’s got the fifth highest career scoring average all-time. He’s 0.06 points behind Kevin Durant and 0.14 behind Elgin Baylor. So essentially, he’s one of the three all-time greatest scorers by scoring average. It’s not just a longevity thing. Better shooting percentage from two than Kevin Durant and Michael Jordan. Ninth all-time in threes, and on top of that, he’s fourth all-time in assists. The constant narrative about nit-picking things with LeBron, most of them are just not factual.”
Redick also dismissed the narratives about James’ inability to perform in clutch situations.
“LeBron James not being clutch, that’s another thing people bring up all the time… LeBron James has the most clutch time points ever. The only other player with over 2000 clutch points is Kobe. Second most game-tying or game-winning shots inside the fourth quarter or overtime. He has five buzzer-beating winners in the playoffs, the most in NBA history. I don’t know where people are coming up with these. ‘Is LeBron James an all-time great scorer?’ No, he is the all-time greatest scorer.”
Jayden Armant is a contributor to Inside the Heat. He is a student at Howard University. He can be reached at jayden.armant@bison.howard.edu or follow him on Twitter @jaydenarmant.
