“It still baffles me that as much as love you get, you still don’t get the love that you deserve” - Draymond Green congratulates LeBron James on overtaking Karl Malone, says he will eventually overtake Kareem
LeBron James’ recent achievement of overtaking Karl Malone for NBA all-time scoring was celebrated in Wednesday’s episode of “The Draymond Green Show”.
During the episode, Draymond Green voices his congratulations to LeBron and explains what he believes he can accomplish in the future.
Draymond Green believes LeBron James still does not get the love he deserves
LeBron James became the first player in NBA history to have 10,000 points, assists, and rebounds. Unfortunately for him, the accolade came during a 29 point loss to the Phoenix Suns. LA faced Phoenix on March 13th, losing 140-111, but “The King” still found a reason to celebrate.
Currently in first place for points-per-game, LeBron James is averaging 30.0 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 6.3 assists so far this season. Unfortunately, that has not translated into victories for the LA Lakers.
The Lakers currently stand 9th place in the Western Conference with 31 wins to 41 losses. Anthony Davis has been injured for a majority of the season while the squad has been dealing with some chemistry issues. As a result, they have yet to gain traction at all this season. Recently, however, they are fresh off a large 131-120 victory in Cleveland that lifted the team’s spirits.
Draymond Green’s comments come after LeBron James’ achievement passing Karl Malone. James now stands second with 36,985 points and counting, behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at 38,387. Even after passing Karl in points and proving yet again how great of a player he is has James been met with negativity. For some reason, every time he achieves another accolade the public still find a reason to place it in comparison to another player taking away from LeBron’s greatness. Green has come to LeBron’s defense on that note, explaining that he still deserves more love than he is getting.
Draymond even went so far as to say that he believes LeBron James is going to pass Kareem for first place all-time. That would definitely spicen up the LeBron vs. Jordan debate for GOAT.
It is at least refreshing to see LeBron James and company stay positive amongst all the negativity they have received this season. After James passed Karl Malone in points, he waited until after the game to celebrate. Some people found that him celebrating after a 29-point loss to the Suns was inappropriate. Draymond Green believes otherwise, and so does Gilbert Arenas, as voiced in Tuesday’s episode of “NBA Heat Check”.
Arenas weighed in with his opinion on LeBron celebrating:
“It would have been unrealistic if he did what he usually did. You know, these stats are meaningless, you know and we should have won the game, and blah. That’s unrealistic, come on. You just did something no one else has ever done, I wanna see you have real feelings.”
People coming to the defence of LeBron and giving him the space to celebrate his accomplishments is exactly what the Lakers need right now. LeBron averaging the highest points-per-game in his 19th season in the league is a crazy feat in itself and there is very little talk about it. The only reason his name is aside the MVP contention is because of the poor season from his LA Lakers.
Hopefully LeBron and company can use his recent accomplishments and support from the league as the fuel they need to continue excelling. With the playoffs quickly closing in, the Lakers are going to have to settle the waters sooner rather than later.