NBA fans love a good debate, especially one that involves LeBron James.
The latest comes from former NBA player Lou Williams, who believes James would win 15 straight championships if he played in 1975. Isiah Thomas, a 12-time NBA All-Star and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, weighed in on the idea while also questioning if LeBron would even be the best athlete at the time.
"I find it comical and laughable how some not all people think this is the first generation of basketball players that athletically could run and jump," Thomas tweeted in response. "I'm not sure he would be the best athlete in 1975 all things being equal."
For what it's worth, James has proven to be arguably one of the best athletes in the NBA throughout his two-decade-plus run, not to mention nearly matching his stats in his age 39 season (25.7 PPG, 8.3 APG, 7.3 RPG) against his first year as an All-Star in his sophomore outing (27.2 PPG, 7.2 APG, 7.4 RPG).
Thomas' remark about some people thinking "this is the first generation of basketball players that athletically could run and jump" could be alluding to a comment once made by former NBA player and current Los Angeles Lakers head coach J.J. Redick while discussing Bob Cousy on ESPN's First Take.
Redick received backlash when he said Cousy, a Hall of Famer and 13-time All-Star who played for the Boston Celtics in the 1950s and 1960s, was "being guarded by plumbers and firemen."
The late Jerry West, who was the inspiration for the NBA logo and, ironically, a Lakers great, fired back at Redick by calling his own NBA resume into question.
"Tell me what his career looked like?" West asked. "What did he do that determined games? He averaged 12 points a game in the league."