Just this past week, Stephen A. Smith stirred the pot by saying Giannis Antetokounmpo would be an “underachiever” if he didn’t win another title. It’s just the latest byproduct of what ring culture has done to the sport of basketball and the media discourse around it. And it doesn’t happen — at least not nearly as much — in any other major sport. LeBron James doesn’t have the answer for why that’s the case. Neither do the rest of us.
He’s not sure why or when rings became the metric for everything.
“Like, OK, ‘You weren’t a great player if you never won a championship,’ or ‘If you’ve won one, then you can’t be in the same conversation as this person,” James said on Mind the Game with co-host Steve Nash.
No matter how much you have, it’s never enough.
“It never ends,” Nash quipped.
“I don’t know, man, it’s just like you sit here and tell me that Allen Iverson and Charles Barkley and Steve are f*cking wasn’t unbelievable,” said James. Like, ‘Oh, they can’t be talked about or discussed with these guys because this guy won one ring or won two rings. “It’s just weird to me. It’s like saying Peyton Manning can’t be in the same room as [Tom] Brady or [Patrick] Mahomes because he only has one ring (Peyton has two). They don’t never discuss that in their sport. Or telling me that Dan Marino is not the greatest slinger of all-time, or he can’t be in the room with those guys because he didn’t win a championship. They don’t discuss those things.”
LeBron James didn’t name names when it came to who “they” were, but based on his jabs at the media — and Brian Windhorst — in recent weeks, it’s not hard to connect the dots. He’s clearly speaking to a certain corner of basketball media that’s turned championship count into shorthand for legacy, no matter the context, nuance, or even logic.
That’s the thing about ring culture. It flattens everything. It turns a Hall of Fame resume into a punchline if there’s no jewelry to go with it. It’s why someone like Barkley becomes the butt of Inside the NBA jokes and why someone like Iverson, whose cultural impact is still felt today, gets sidelined in some all-time conversations. And it’s why, in James’ eyes, so many careers have been underappreciated.
“I don’t know. Did Barry Bonds win a World Series?” James asked.
He did not.
“Barry Bonds never won a World Series, and you can’t sit here and not tell me that he isn’t the greatest baseball player to ever touch a bat,” the Los Angeles Lakers star continued. “I just, I don’t understand where it came from. I don’t know where it started. I just hope we have to appreciate more of what guys have been able to accomplish, what guys have been able to do. A ring is a team accomplishment. And if you happen to have a moment where you’re able to share that with your team, that should be discussed. ‘This team was the greatest team,’ or ‘That team.’ You can have those conversations.
“But trying to nitpick an individual because he was not able to win a team game or a team match, or whatever the case may be. I don’t know where it started, but it’s a long conversation, especially when it comes to me individually. It’s so weird. It’s never enough.”
That frustration doesn’t just belong to LeBron James. Adam Silver has hinted at it, too. The NBA commissioner has pushed for a shift in media coverage, asking for league partners to broadcast more positivity. And in the current media landscape, fans generally want less obsession with titles and more appreciation for the grind, the stories, and the nuance.
But, then again, those narratives often get drowned out by the loudest voices in sports media.
“You automatically dismiss people and their careers when you just be like, ‘Oh, he didn’t win a ring,’ or ‘He doesn’t have a ring.’ It’s like, but have you actually sat down and really looked at this guy’s career and what he was able to accomplish?” said James. “I mean, Jerry West, I think, went to like nine straight NBA Finals and was only able to win one. And he’s the logo of our league. So, you can’t sit here and tell me that, okay, because he only won one; the guy can’t be in the same room with the guy who won two, three, or four.”
That’s the paradox LeBron James keeps returning to, which is the idea that greatness can be both obvious and ignored, depending solely on hardware. It’s a conversation that comes for every modern superstar, eventually. When the media reduces everything to rings, legacy becomes a game that no one can win.
“I don’t know when it started, man,” James added. “I just hope we appreciate the guys who definitely, you know, it doesn’t matter, man. At the end of the day, when you’re done, and the game has passed you by, I hope you just appreciate what we’re able to do.”