Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James is not penciling in an NBA finals rematch with the Golden State Warriors, he tells ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. When asked if a rematch with the Warriors was on his mind, James responded:
“To be completely honest, it’s not,” James said after Cavs shootaround Thursday prior to their game against the Los Angeles Clippers. “It would be selfish of me and foolish of me to think about playing the Warriors in another Finals. It would be disrespectful to my teammates, disrespectful to the rest of the league and disrespectful to the Warriors to even [entertain the thought].”
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“I have zero entitlement on this journey,” James continued. “It’s always a process for me. The Warriors are a great team. They assembled great players in Draymond [Green] and Klay [Thompson] and Steph [Curry] and KD and the rest of those guys, and obviously they have a great coach in Steve Kerr, but it would be foolish of me and disrespectful to myself, to my teammates and to the rest of the competition to just put ourselves in a third matchup with them. And I haven’t even fantasized about it. I haven’t thought about it. It’s too long of a season.
“It’s too much work to be done for me to put myself in that mind frame. But they’re a great team. We’re a team that wants to get better every day and become a great team as well. So, we’ll see what happens. But I haven’t even thought about it at all.”
James’ teammate, Iman Shumpert, is taking a different attitude; the shooting guard gave the following message to the Warriors yesterday: “We gon’ bust your ass.”
