Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James has been known to terrorize an NBA franchise or two over the course of his 21-year NBA career. Although that dominance hasn't quite reached the same level of consistency during his time with the Lakers, there was an eight year run from 2011-2018 when James did not lose a playoff series in the Eastern Conference.
One frequent victim of James' greatness was Jeff Teague, who was swept by James and the Cavaliers on three separate occasions–twice with the Atlanta Hawks, and once with the Indiana Pacers. The first of those instances occurred in 2015, when the Hawks won a franchise record 60 games and had home court advantage vs the Cavaliers. However, Teague recently took to his Club 520 podcast to recall that even during the All-Star break that year, James had a subtle warning for the Hawks.
“We swept them in the regular season, beat them by 25 every game,” said Teague. “He came to me (during the All-Star break), he was like ‘I figured y'all out.' Forty games to go. ‘I figured y'all out.'”
Teague's podcast guest Nick Young then recalled a similar experience with a former teammate on the Lakers, the late Kobe Bryant.
“They do say that,” said Young. “Kobe said that same s***.”
Teague then broke down how exactly LeBron James' words came to fruition in May of that year.
“All he did was run 3-1 pick and roll,” said Teague. “He'd bring me up there, set it, I'll hedge, eventually I've got to switch. Back me down, get to the free throw line, shoot over me. If somebody helps, throw it to JR Smith, three.”
Indeed, JR Smith torched the Hawks throughout that series (and the following year in 2016), while James proved that he was the best player on the floor by a country mile.
A dominant run
It may be a long while before we see one player dominate an entire conference the way James did during his time with the Cavaliers and Miami Heat, especially considering the level of talent and party that currently exists in the league.
James and the Lakers are now hoping to win their second championship since he joined them in 2018, but the prospects of that happening are becoming less and less realistic by the day.
In any case, it's good that Teague can still laugh about something that had to have been painful at the time.
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