S. Samuel
With NBA superstar LeBron James recently making his way down to South Beach to join the Miami Heat, NBA Elite 11 music scorer and producer 9th Wonder hit up SOHH to share his thoughts on the move.
Comparing James to the legacy of Michael Jordan, Wonder said he was initially surprised at the two-time Most Valuable Player’s decision to abandon his Cleveland team.
“With LeBron, my thing is this, I’m a Michael Jordan fan to death,” 9th told SOHH when asked about his thoughts on LeBron James. “100 percent, as a player. He said, ‘I never wanted to call Magic [Johnson] and Larry [Bird] and say, ‘Come on, let’s be on the same team. I always wanted to beat them.’ And I think in this particular sports generation, man, I think music and sports go hand-in-hand. The same ideology we had about music and doing music back in the day and the way kids handle going on with music now, it’s kinda the same thing with sports. Michael Jordan made $2.2 million a year to keep his team together, it’s not like that anymore. Now it’s about maximum contracts and free agency. There’s not really a team you can follow because you don’t know how long they’re gonna stay together. It’s just a different world.” (SOHH)
Wonder also believes James no longer has an excuse not to win an NBA championship next year.
“We could follow players back then because you weren’t only following Magic but the Lakers’ dynasty too,” 9th added. “Now it’s harder because everyone wants a dollar. With LeBron, I wish he would have stayed in Cleveland, I know it’s kinda hard for him under the circumstances but I think it’s a situation where he could have built a dynasty there. You’ve been there six years, Jordan was in Chicago for seven. They keep comparing him to that, that benchmark. Everybody wants him to make the noise and make the impact that he did but don’t want to work hard like the way he got it. Now it’s a situation where he’s down in Miami and they can pull it off. Now if they ‘don’t’ pull it off, if you go down there and you got Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, three big superstars down there, and you don’t pull it off, there’s something wrong. You have to win everything. There are no [excuses].” (SOHH)
Los Angeles Lakers fan Ice Cube believes James made a mistake joining the Heat.
“Kurupt is one of my favorite MC’s. He’s got complicated metaphors that’s still gangsta,” Cube wrote on Thursday (July 15). “15 minutes after he left the room in came Snoop. We talked about the Lakers kickin’ the Celtics a** in the Finals. We laughed about LeBron joining The Heat. It won’t work, Lakers are still the team to beat.” (Ice Cube’s Blog)
James made his long-awaited decision to join the Heat earlier this month.
In the here and now, LeBron James probably did the best thing for himself. By joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami to form an NBA superpower squad, James, who announced Thursday night that he was bolting Cleveland via free agency, will more than likely win a championship — or two or three — sooner rather than later. And ultimately, that’s what James so desperately wants after seven “failed” seasons with the Cavaliers. (ESPN)
Check out some past footage of LeBron James below:
