Unlike his previous stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers early in his career, LeBron James has proven to be a changed man since becoming an NBA champion. As one of the league’s most prominent stars, James has always been at the forefront of headlines and news outlets, but even more so after leaving town to pursue a championship run with his friends in South Beach.
Now back with the organization that selected him No. 1 overall in 2003, James has learned to see the bigger picture and narrow his focus on basketball, leaving all the here-say and hoopla aside.
Once James started his torrid run of seven straight NBA Finals appearances in 2011, he’d carefully and intently read articles and columns written about him and his performance, but those days have long come to a wrap, learning that the answers he often seeks will reside with his teammates and coaching staff.
“I really don’t hear the noise. I couldn’t really care less. It really doesn’t matter to me,” James told ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. “The narrative and people writing articles and things like that, I don’t care. Those things doesn’t bother me. So it’s hard for me to even tell my teammates, hey, don’t listen to it, because I don’t even get involved in it.”
“I stopped caring a long time ago, so it doesn’t even bother me at all.”
Ever since his first NBA Finals appearance against the San Antonio Spurs, much has been made of his legacy and how it would compare to the one player that has been hailed as the best to ever play the game during the better part of the last two decades.
King James assured that as he has aged and achieved more success, he’s gained perspective in the matter and learned to completely tune it out of his field of sight — giving him a clearer, simpler path to achieve his goals.
“I’m not in that department anymore. I left that in [my] 20s,” James said. “I’m not in the ‘prove people wrong, silence critics people’ department no more. I got a promotion when I got to the 30s.”
“So at the end of the day, I know what I’ve done and I know what I’ve built.”