Colin Cowherd Slams LeBron James for 'Ring Culture' Comments
Colin Cowherd Slams LeBron James for 'Ring Culture' Comments originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Twenty-one time All-Star Los Angeles Lakers superstar power forward LeBron James, who has appeared in 10 NBA Finals and won four of them, apparently no longer thinks championships matter when appraising a successful NBA run.
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The 6-foot-9 superstar, a four-time Finals MVP, abandoned the Cleveland Cavaliers to make a bid for championship glory with the Miami Heat in the summer of 2010, apparently very much wanting to cement his legacy and win a title. With Dwyane Wade aging and Miami shipping out Mike Miller to save money, James jetted back to Cleveland in 2014 as a free agent.
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron JamesJesse Johnson-Imagn Images
The four-time league MVP won two titles with the Heat (next to future Hall of Famers Wade and Chris Bosh), in 2012 and '13, and one with Cleveland (alongside fellow future Hall of Famers Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love), in 2016, while appearing in eight straight NBA Finals. He next signed with the Los Angeles Lakers as a free agent in 2018, winning it all with Hall of Fame teammate Anthony Davis in 2020.
During a recent episode of his "Mind The Game" podcast with new co-host Steve Nash (replacing JJ Redick, who's now his head coach), James bemoaned the notion of "ring culture" that has popped up around his historic career.
'A ring is a team accomplishment," James claimed. "I don't know where [ring culture] started, especially when it comes to me individually.'
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Understandably, the guy that has hopped around to different teams three different times in free agency to pursue more championship was chastised by media pundits for these comments.
On his show "The Herd with Colin Cowherd," longtime sports personality Colin Cowherd rightly called out James' hypocrisy.
"Nobody says, 'Charles Barkley's not amazing.' Nobody says, 'Allen Iverson's not amazing.' Nobody says, 'Dan Marino's not amazing.' But Barkley isn't MJ [Michael Jordan], and Marino's not [Tom] Brady," Cowherd noted. "And the reason is the trophies, and LeBron knows that."
Jordan won six championships in an eight-year span with the Chicago Bulls (and was retired during one of those seasons), while Brady took his New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers to 10 Super Bowls, winning seven. Barkley, Iverson and Marino never claimed a championship in their respective sports.
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"LeBron has no chance to win a trophy with the current Lakers roster, so now they don't matter. He's spent his entire career pursuing titles," Cowherd observed. "You think he went to Miami to lay on the beach? He went there for [Pat] Riley and [Erik] Spoelstra and a better owner and a better roster. He didn't go West, he stayed in the weak East, to keep getting to Finals. LeBron pursued Finals and Michael's six-for-six for years."
"So back when... he knew he had a chance to win several more, the ring mattered," Cowherd said. "Now he can't, now rings don't matter."
Related: Stephen A. Smith Calls Out LeBron James Following 'Ring Culture' Comments
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
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