In a recent episode of CJ McCollum’s “Pull Up” podcast, new Miami Heat guard and one-time NBA champion Kyle Lowry shared some insight on his former teammate Kawhi Leonard. The two played together for one season only and won the championship that year.
The Toronto Raptors’ legend said something that will raise the eyebrows of some NBA fans. Lowry claimed that Kawhi was a ‘selfish’ player when they played together in 2018-2019 season for Toronto.
“Kawhi rubbed people the wrong way because of how he operates. He’s like, ‘Yo, give me the ball. I’ma get it done.’ You might be like, ‘Kawhi, I’m open,’ But he’s like, ‘Ah, I’m gonna get this bucket.'” You understand he’s the best basketball player on your team. Big dog gotta eat… At the end of the day big dog gotta eat. We give you the ball, you do your thing. As long as we win games, we’re all good.”
“My role just changed, because the year before I score a little bit more. He was averaging 24-25, and we had other guys around. Marc Gasol, Danny Green. Freddy was coming into his own, Pascal was coming into his own, we had Serge. My scoring went way down, but my assists went up, because I knew I had to make sure big dog ate.”
Skip Bayless, a known Kawhi Leonard fan since Leonard’s San Antonio Spurs days reacted on Lowry’s statements. He said that he can’t believe that Lowry said those thing about Kawhi even they won a championship.
“I don’t know why Lowry would start out by saying Kawhi rubbed people the wrong way by this, they won the championship! 2019 Finals: 29-10-4. You better give Kawhi the ball and let that big dog EAT.”
Skip also said that Kawhi was the closest player to Michael Jordan’s game and he was even better than the late great Kobe Bryant.
“Kawhi is the closest thing to Jordan we’ve had since Jordan. As a jump shooter, he’s even better than Kobe was at that.”
Kawhi is already a two-time NBA champion and he is only 30 years old. He has a lot of time to win another championship but Skip was reaching when he said that Kawhi is the closest thing to Michael Jordan. Kawhi doesn’t have an NBA season MVP on his resume and he still needs to won four more NBA championship and four more NBA Finals MVP to tie MJ’s record.
Nevertheless, Kawhi is a great player, no doubt about it. But to say that he’s the closest thing to MJ and even a better player than Kobe, it was too much.
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