Jersey retirements are one of the best ways to honour an athlete that played a big role in a franchise’s success, and LeBron James has led Miami Heat to over 66% of its success.
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Recently, NBA decided to retire #6 jerseys league-wide, giving tribute to the greatest basketball-playing son of America. Bill Russell might or might not be the GOAT at basketball, but he is what Jackie Robinson is to MLB and Wayne Gretzky is to NHL.
On the day of Bill Russell’s private funeral, NBA announces its greatest honor: the permanent retirement of No. 6 https://t.co/EPlHHIBxQa
— Boston Globe Sports (@BGlobeSports) August 12, 2022
Russell joins those legends as the only athlete in a major top-tier sport to have a league-wide jersey retirement. But there will be a situation for the teams like Miami Heat who had to get their number 6 retired for James.
Having retired the #3 and #1 jerseys of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, the South Florida team would’ve done the same with James’ jersey once he called it a day. But they would have to do it first for the Celtics’ Big man.
Also read: Billionaire LeBron James was already humbling older teammates as a young 16 year old
Miami Heat might have to retire the #6 twice once LeBron James calls it a day
Unlike the Lakers with whom James is currently playing, wearing the #6 for the past year, and any other team that has an active player already wearing that number when NBA announced the retirement, the Heat will have to do it now because they had already taken it out of rotation since James left back in 2014.
They could have retired it as they did for Michael Jordan’s #23 when he was still playing for the Wizards in 2003. Jordan never played for the franchise, and James played there for 4 years, led them to as many Finals, and won half of them leading from the front.
That is why they already don’t allow players to wear jersey number 6 since Bron left to get back to Cleveland in the 2014 free agency. They might have been waiting for him to announce his retirement when they finally hung his jersey alongside Wade and Bosh.
Now they would just have to do it twice.
Also read: 6’6″ Kobe Bryant revealed the step he had to take to finally become a champion, and a Lakers legend
