LeBron James clinched his tenth NBA Finals berth on Saturday night after beating the Denver Nuggets 117-107 in a series-clinching Game 5.
After the game, LeBron appeared less enthused than some of his teammates, many of which are going to be appearing in the Finals for the very first time.
“We’re going to enjoy it tonight, as we should, because this is not promised every year,” James said via ESPN.
“There’s only two teams that can advance to the Finals every year. That means pretty much 30 players that only advance every year to the Finals. We’re going to enjoy it tonight, but we understand we have bigger fish to fry. We understand there’s a bigger goal, but we can’t take this for granted because this doesn’t happen every year to anybody.”
In his age 35 season, James averaged 25.3 PPG, 10.2 APG, and 7.8RPG en route to leading the Lakers to the best record in the Western Conference.
During the playoffs, James has served as a stabilizing force within a team that has a fair share of veteran leaders.
James joins prestigious company in Bill Russell (12), Sam Jones (11) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (10) as the only players to make it to the NBA Finals ten or more times.