LeBron James Credits Randy Moss For His Ability To Receive Full Court Passes From Luka Dončić With Ease

Randy Moss might not be the greatest wide receiver of all time, but he’s certainly up there. There’s no question he’s among the most influential players at that position in the modern NFL, too. His 6’4″, 210-pound frame combined with his freakish speed and massive leaping ability made him a unicorn of an athlete in the league.

That made him especially dangerous on deep balls and long passes. The West Virginia native had 28 TD catches of 50+ yards in his career, the second-most since tracking data began in 1994 (DeSean Jackson). Moss was so good at winning jump balls from behind smaller DBs that the NFL’s equivalent of getting dunked on became known as getting “Mossed”.

LeBron James, who grew up in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Moss was doing his best work, recently showed some love to the Hall of Fame receiver (again) on his podcast. Steve Nash asked LeBron about his ‘QB-WR’ relationship with Luka Doncic on full-court passes. James talked about how Randy Moss and other wideouts taught him not to show his hands to his defender when a long pass is coming to him.

“Being a former receiver in high school, kinda seeing the ball come and not showing my hands to the cornerback. I learned that a lot from Randy Moss when I was growing up. He said a lot of times he would run his routes, and he wouldn’t raise his hand up too soon.”

As not only one of the most athletic freaks but also one of the most cerebral players the NBA has seen, LeBron James clearly knows how the little things can make a world of a difference in games of inches like football and basketball. The late-hand-show technique is a classic one taught by receiver coaches across the nation. But the King got the lesson from one of the greats in Randy Moss.

“Because if the defender is trailing him, if he raises his hand up too soon then the defender knows the ball is coming. He would try to wait until the last moment to put his hand up and now the cornerback wouldn’t see it. And I learned that watching Randy Moss when I played in high school, and I try to do that in the game as well.”

This is not the first time LeBron has shown love to Moss either. The kid from Akron was asked back in 2021 about his football skill set in high school and which NFL player he believed it resembled most. You can guess his answer.

“I would say, I resembled kinda Randy Moss. His ability to be his height, but be able to run past anybody with that speed. And still be able to catch passes in the paint as well, or in the interior, as they call it in football. In between the lines.”

Moss went through a difficult personal time recently. James was once again one of the voices online shouting out support. The wideout revealed in December that he had been dealing with bile duct cancer. However, he said he had undergone something called a Whipple procedure to take care of it and was now a “cancer survivor”. When he made his brief return to the broadcasting desk at Super Bowl 59, LBJ was one of the ones cheering from afar.

Randy Moss will continue in his role as an analyst with ESPN next year after that great health news. 40-year-old LeBron James and his Los Angeles Lakers, meanwhile, continue to battle for playoff seeding in the Wild Wild Western Conference. The Lakeshow currently sits in fourth with a 46-29 record with seven games to go.