NBA guard Iman Shumpert won a championship with LeBron James in 2016 with the Cleveland Cavaliers. On Wednesday, the former Knicks and Cavs wing compared the 2015-16 Cavs to LeBron's latest title-winning squad, the 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers.
During an appearance on Complex's “Load Management” show on Tuesday, Shumpert was asked who he would take in a hypothetical matchup between the two teams.
Not surprisingly, he's taking the Cavs—and he doesn't think it would be much of a series.
When co-host Chopz suggested the Cavaliers would beat the Lakers in five games, Shumpert emphatically agreed.
“For sure, you f–king serious?!”
Shumpert acknowledged that Rajon Rondo matches up adequately against Kyrie Irving, but not well enough.
“I mean, Rondo matches up. We not gonna violate, though. We not gonna violate him. We gonna beat em, we just not gonna violate him,” Shumpert said.
Shumpert's take lost a little steam when his solution to which Cavaliers big man would guard Anthony Davis was “Mozzy,” as in Timofey Mozgov.
However, he did make one extremely amusing case as to what truly gives the 2016 Cavs the edge in this make-believe matchup (and some constructive criticism for the Lakers coaching staff).
“We had the real J.R. Swish,” Shumpert pointed out about J.R. Smith, who was a member of both teams. “They don't wanna use him now, I get it. He's older and he had spent one year out of the league, I totally understand … but we not gonna act like J.R Smith ain't J.R. Smith.”
Cleveland went 57-25 in the 2015-16 regular season, then epically erased a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals to defeat the 73-win Golden State Warriors. Shumpert averaged 5.8 points per game in 54 games for the Cavs,and played a key role as a wing defender in the Finals.
Those Cavs had the fourth-best net rating in the league (6.3), a better figure than the 2019-20 Lakers (5.6). James led L.A. to a 49-14 record before the bubble, then a 16-5 record in the playoffs.