LeBron is always plotting.
He learned during his first stint with the Cavs. No matter how great that player maybe, one man can not lead a team to a title. It is the reason that Scottie Pippen is so salty right now. Pippen may be bitter, but he is correct in saying without him, Michael Jordan is the Michael Jordan we know today.
Unlike Jordan, who just had Pippen as a sidekick for all his championship runs, LeBron has mixed and matched over the years. Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Anthony Davis, and now Russell Westbrook are some of the future Hall of Famers who helped LeBron achieve KING status.
It appears he wanted to add Damian Lillard to that list, but Westbrook was an option. Here is how it all went down, according to Lillard himself to Yahoo Sports.
The day before Lillard was to shoot his music video, he made a surprise appearance at a WNBA game, featuring the Los Angeles Sparks and Las Vegas Aces. Upon arriving, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James was already sitting courtside.
Later that evening, James sent Lillard an invitation to his mansion in Brentwood.
“He was like, ‘Pull up. Let’s have lunch to talk shop,'” Lillard told Yahoo Sports. “So I pulled up.”
“‘ Bron asked what I was thinking with my situation, and I told him what I’m telling you: that I just want to be in a position to win it all,” Lillard told Yahoo Sports. “He painted the picture to me that if I were to leave, the situation could look like this. He didn’t tell me to come to L.A., and he didn’t say anything to me that I didn’t already know other than what it could look like. I told him, ‘I know if I were to play with y’all, I know it would work out because of my skill set,’ and who I am and who they are.”
Lillard expressed his hesitancy to join any iteration of a superteam.
“I was just saying, I don’t know if this is the route I wanted to go,” Lillard told Yahoo Sports. “And that was pretty much how the conversation went.”
Lillard said the meeting lasted about an hour and a half, and the thought of a superteam just wasn’t appealing to him.
I don’t think there is a right or wrong thing to do in these situations. You have to do what is best for you and your family. For Lillard, that is staying in Portland for now and trying to make it work.
I hope it does for him.
Flip the page for more of LeBron trying to woo Lillard away.