While most NBA fans and analysts are already writing in the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors for this year’s NBA Finals, LeBron James is staying focused on the long season ahead.
After Thursday’s practice at Cleveland Clinic Courts, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin asked James if the potential of a third straight NBA Finals matchup with the Warriors ever crosses his mind.
James replied:
To be completely honest, it’s not. It would be selfish of me and foolish of me to think about playing the Warriors in another Finals. It would be disrespectful to my teammates, disrespectful to the rest of the league, and disrespectful to the Warriors to even [entertain the thought].”
James continued, speaking on the insane journey it takes just to get there.
I have zero entitlement on this journey. It’s always a process for me. The Warriors are a great team. They assembled great players in Draymond [Green] and Klay [Thompson] and Steph [Curry] and KD and the rest of those guys, and obviously they have a great coach in Steve Kerr, but it would be foolish of me and disrespectful to myself, to my teammates and to the rest of the competition to just put ourselves in a third matchup with them. And I haven’t even fantasized about it. I haven’t thought about it. It’s too long of a season.
It’s too much work to be done for me to put myself in that mind frame. But they’re a great team. We’re a team that wants to get better every day and become a great team as well. So, we’ll see what happens. But I haven’t even thought about it at all.”
It seems James isn’t taking anything for granted. He knows that the NBA season is a process; anything can happen at any time.
The Cavs will face the revamped Warriors in a little less than a month. The Christmas Day showdown will be the first meeting of the two teams since last year’s epic Finals series, where Cleveland defeated Golden State in epic comeback fashion (down three games to one).
