Lakers guard Austin Reaves has been pretty open about the fact that he wasn’t always LeBron James’ biggest fan and he revealed exactly when he stopped hating the Lakers great.
Last year, social media posts of Reaves hating on LeBron from 2012 came to light, but now that he’s teammates with LeBron, he seems to have come full circle.
“I’ve asked LeBron a lot of questions,” Reaves said on BustaJack Golf. “More than he probably wants me to, to be honest. But when you’re playing with the greatest of all time, how do you not try to pick his brain? I’ve asked him what he thought his greatest year was, not in terms of championships but in terms of peak athleticism, skill, and knowledge. For me, I think his best year was the year they lost to KD (Kevin Durant) and Steph (Stephen Curry) in the Finals. That was the year I finally stopped hating him.”
In the same episode, Reaves went on to defend LeBron’s most recent title win from the 2020 bubble.
“It’s not a Mickey Mouse ring,” Reaves said. “… Everybody had an equal playing field, I think it’s the same as every other year. I just think if Bron doesn’t win it, then nobody says anything. Everybody hates Bron. Actually, everybody loves LeBron, but he gets so much hate.”
Another NBA player, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope defended the Lakers’ title run not long ago.
In July, he told Draymond Green on The Draymond Green Show that, “It’s one of the hardest championships to win. You’re playing a season, then the season’s shut down. You don’t know if you’re even going to come back and play basketball.”
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