While Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James have never played for the same team until this season, their friendship has been a major storyline in each of their careers. Now that they’ve teamed up with the Los Angeles Lakers, Anthony is getting an even closer look at how James has been able to accomplish all that he has over the past 19 years.
James has long been known for his ability to make the players around him better. He’s had to lean on that ability even more in the past few years as he loses some of the agility and strength he had during the height of his extended prime.
Anthony took notice of this change, saying that James’ leadership style can only come with his level of experience. “Yeah, I think at 19 years you’ve seen everything,” Anthony said. “You’ve seen everything that the game has to offer. Whether it good teams, bad teams, whatever it may be. Everything that comes along with the game of basketball.
“We’ve seen it and he’s seen it at a very high level night in and night out, year in and year out. So he understands it. He understands what it takes to build championship teams. Nobody just comes together and it happens in Week 1 or Week 2.
“I think, I believe that come May, June, we’ll be sitting here and we probably won’t even remember this conversation. And I hope we don’t remember it. I won’t bring it up. But when you have that experience, it makes the thought process and the patience level a little bit higher.”
There is perhaps no one currently in the NBA who knows James better than Anthony, giving this compliment even more weight.
The leadership displayed by James — as well as the experience throughout the roster — is most likely the reason why the Lakers are so unfazed by their poor preseason showing. They are aware that these things take time, and it appears they have no plans to rush the process.
James believes Lakers were successful in building chemistry
At one point during their 0-6 preseason, James said that he cared more about training camp than he did the exhibition games. Prior to the regular season, James believes they were successful in their goal of building chemistry during games and practices.
“I think we built our chemistry as the games went on and on and on. We’re starting to learn each other, try to learn each other every quarter, every time we were out on the floor. So that was the biggest thing that we can build from the games that we played.”
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