LeBron James‘ skills and talent made him one of the most touted prospects in the nation just as a high schooler. The hype around James’ draft was unreal to the point that many doubted the 18-year-old would succumb under the pressure in the league. One of such naysayers was James’ former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate Darius Miles, who played for one season with LBJ. Before James’ draft, Miles believed that putting a ‘hyped’ high school player on the Cavs team wouldn’t turn the franchise’s fate around.
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21 years later, Miles clarified that the public had taken his comments on LeBron James instead in distaste. It was one of those moments for Miles where he had his hot take gone cold. However, in an appearance on FanDuel‘s ‘Run It Back’ podcast, the veteran reiterated how the public derived the wrong meaning from an edited clip from his interview. He said,
“If you look at the whole interview and everything they’re saying…You know, I’m a country boy, so I probably used a lot of wording that they might have not understood in a slang type of way. But, in that statement, if you listen to everything I say, I was taking up for him because I was like ‘Man, y’all ain’t going to put that pressure on my man like that to just turn something around.”
Darius Miles had a good relationship with LeBron James and his family since James’ high school days. Miles often dropped by Akron to visit James at home or watch him play from the courtside during his high school senior year games. Miles seemed to be looking out for the young star, who had immense pressure on him coming into the league. His main concern was with the media building an unreal hype around James, expecting him to turn around the Cavs franchise right after his draft.
Nevertheless, LBJ lived up to all the hype and expectations around him. He helped the Cavs win their first Eastern Conference Championship and a first trip to the NBA Finals in the 2006-07 season. However, despite LeBron being the team’s leading scorer, a more experienced and veteran Spurs team swept the Cavaliers in the Finals series.
However, LeBron James never dropped his form and continued in his career, winning four NBA championships, including one with the Cavs in his 21 seasons in the league.
Darius Miles highlighted the problems of dealing with LeBron James’ hype
The LeBron James hype and frenzy had well-captivated the Cleveland Cavaliers to select him as their first overall pick in 2003. Seeing James’ exploits in high school, the Cavs were convinced that the young star from Akron could probably turn the franchise into a regular playoffs team. However, Darius Miles, who played a brief stint with the Cavs, was skeptical of the organization’s approach to developing James.
According to Basketball Network, D-Miles revealed that the Cavaliers were stuck in the frenzy of selecting the most hyped player of the decade. However, in that process, they seemed to have forgotten how to utilize a young James around the existing Cavs team.
Miles played as a point guard after James’ arrival and admitted to being unable to fit into the new structure of coach Paul Silas. In conversation with Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson, Miles said, “They brought me back and played me, and it just– the hype from LeBron was so much that there wasn’t a manual for how to structure this all right and get us all together.”
Miles believed the Cavs were still a good team despite his reservations, especially with LeBron on the roster. However, he admitted that Paul Silas’ mix of old-school and experimental coaching styles was not helping the team in winning games or proving effective in the long run.
