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LeBron James has had a long 18-year NBA career, and there have been many challenges along the way. This season with the LA Lakers has not gone to the plan James probably envisioned, which has made it a challenge.
James has admitted that by saying this season is one of the toughest he has had to face in his career. On ESPN's "First Take," they discussed this comment by LeBron James, and retired NBA sharpshooter J.J. Redick said James' season with the Cleveland Cavaliers was much more challenging than this one.
Redick said this when asked for his opinion,
“The greatest challenge of LeBron James’ career was bringing a championship to Cleveland. He had five opportunities to do that.”
LeBron James played 11 seasons in Cleveland and made five NBA Finals, winning only one. Many of the teams he took to the NBA Finals had no reason to be involved in the championship series. On top of that, his one championship came against a team that won the most regular-season games in NBA history and required completing a 3-1 comeback against the Golden State Warriors.
Reddick went on to say,
“And if you look at all the teams, he brought the Finals with Cleveland, other than '15 and '16, those teams were over matched. This team right now with the Lakers has two future Hall of Famers on his team. This is not the greatest challenge of his career.”
It is difficult to argue for this season being James’ biggest challenge despite the early season struggles mainly because of the talent on the roster.
A look back at LeBron James’ Finals runs with the Cleveland Cavaliers
In 2006-07 the Cavaliers were dragged to the NBA Finals by LeBron James. James averaged 27.3 points per game that season, while no one else had more than 15 points, with Larry Hughes averaging 14.9. The pattern continued in the playoffs as no other Cavalier scored more than 13 ppg. The San Antonio Spurs swept the Cavs in the Finals.
The 2014-15 Cavs had a chance to win the NBA Finals. James had quality players flanking him, with Kyrie Irving averaging 21.7 ppg and Kevin Love with 16.4 ppg. However, in the playoffs, both Love and Irving got hurt, which led to a 4-2 series loss to the Warriors.
In 2015-16, Irving and Love stayed healthy in the playoffs, and another year of playing alongside LeBron James grew their connection. Both Irving and Love found their roles alongside James, and in the playoffs Irving came alive, averaging 25.2 ppg on Cleveland's way to coming back from a 3-1 deficit to the Warriors.
The 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons can be summed up with the same Kevin Durant, arguably the best player in the NBA at the time. After the Warriors lost a 3-1 lead, they signed Durant and made the league unfair for three seasons. That pretty much sealed the NBA Finals for the Warriors, winning 4-1 and then sweeping James and the Cavs without Irving in 2017-18.
These seasons had their challenges in LeBron James' career and were probably more complicated than this season, or at least for now.
