James: I don t know where the trend of evaluating players with rings comes from

LeBron James is one of the greatest players in NBA history. He holds four championship rings and leads three different teams to the championship. Recently, in the podcast program "Brain of the Field" co-hosted with Nash, James criticized the NBA's discussion on "ring culture". He believes that winning the championship is the achievement of the entire team, and the number of winning championships should not be an indicator to measure whether a player is great.

"I don't know where this trend started because a player cannot win a team game or cannot win a team game. This will cause a long debate, especially when it comes to me." James said, "It's so weird. You can't do enough."

James is a four-time regular season MVP and the NBA's all-time scoring leader. In his 22-year career, he has reached the Finals 10 times and won four championships. Nash, sitting opposite James, also won two regular season MVPs, but he never won the championship. Nash recognized James' success, and the latter also gave his own explanation.

"I don't know why rings are discussed so much in the sport, why it seems to mean everything," James said. "That's like, someone thinks, 'You haven't won the championship, so you're not a great player.' Or, 'You only got one championship, you don't deserve to be on par with this guy.' You sit here and tell me, are Iverson, Buckley, Nash incredible players?"

"They always say, 'Oh, you can't talk with these guys because they have a ring, or two rings.' That seems strange to me," James continued. The Lakers star also mentioned the comparison between other sports and basketball, saying that great players like Dan Marino (the rugby star) or Barry Bonds (the baseball star) have not won the championship, but no one will demand anything for it.

"I don't understand where (ring culture) comes from, and I don't know where this trend started," James said. "I just hope we can appreciate more about what people have achieved and what they do. Rings are a team honor, and if you happen to have the opportunity to share such moments with the team, it's really worth discussing. 'It's a great team' or 'that team', you can have such a discussion."

(text/Thai Fu)