There has been some talk lately about who the face of the NBA will be moving forward now that LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant are all at an advanced age and inching toward retirement. One candidate is Anthony Edwards, the exciting star guard of the Minnesota Timberwolves who seems to raise his production every season.
After the Los Angeles Lakers defeated Edwards’ Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday, James made a comment about Edwards not wanting to be the face of the league that seemed to ruffle people’s feathers while also making it about himself.
“Why do you wanna be the face of the league when all the people that cover our game and talk about our game on a day to day basis [expletive] on everybody? Obviously, I didn’t ask for it. I feel Ant. I understand. This is weird energy when it comes to that”
Some in the media attacked James for saying “he didn’t ask” to be the face of the league, including Brian Windhorst.
James has obviously been arguably the most prominent NBA superstar for at least the last dozen years, and many consider him one of the two to three greatest players to play the game. He has always put himself in the middle of the limelight and drawn attention to himself, and he seems to think of himself as one of the all-time great ambassadors of the sport.
For his part, he took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to respond to the blowback on his initial comment regarding Edwards.
Following the Lakers’ win on Friday over the Los Angeles Clippers, James went live on ESPN to elaborate further.
“What matters to me, when it comes to my generation and the younger generation that’s in our league now, is that we play for the love of the game. We’re not out here cheating the game. We’re putting the grind in, we’re putting the time in. We’ve always gave up and gave props to the generation that came before us, always picked them up because we know without them it would not have been us. We’re just trying to carry on tradition. My generation. Me, Steph, KD, Russ (Russell Westbrook), James [Harden], Kawhi [Leonard], the rest of our crew. And then we got the younger generation that’s doing their thing as well. We love what we do. And it’s a responsibility for all of us to continue to press the game, push the game in a positive factor for all our fans all over America and all over the world. Because it’s the best, most beautiful game in the world. When you watch basketball, you’re basically listening to music. You’re listening to jazz music, R&B music, rap music, heavy metal, everything essential with that. So it’s a beautiful game. We’re all in a position to play this game and we’re here for a reason, but we don’t never take it for granted. I hope everyone sees that when we hit the floor.”
James is continuing to play at a level befitting of being the face of the NBA. On the season, he’s averaging 24.9 points, 8.6 assists and 8.1 rebounds a game while shooting 52.1% from the field and 39.5% from 3-point range. Despite the recent acquisition of Luka Doncic, it is James who drove L.A. to a fantastic 10-2 record in February with averages of 29.3 points, 10.5 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game on some hot shooting (he missed one game on Feb. 8).
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