LeBron: 'Whole goal' of some teams is beating me
Having won three of the last five championships and made six straight trips to the NBA Finals, LeBron James no longer has any qualms about declaring his place in the league.
James is the one to beat, full stop. He is the gatekeeper to the championship, and teams wrack their brains each year in hopes of finding some way to beat him.
"I know teams switch and pick up new coaches or new players, and their whole goal is kind of they want to beat me," James told Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com.
"It's never just about me, but I always hear them saying, 'We gotta beat LeBron.' It's not just me on the court, but I understand that teams get together in this conference and across the league to try to beat me."
James reigns supreme for now, but it wasn't that long ago when he was the contending for the throne. He recalls how Boston's Big Three led him to form his own - first in Miami, then in Cleveland.
Now that he's on top, James has left a trail of broken contenders in his wake. He conquered the Celtics, fended off the Chicago Bulls, outmuscled the Indiana Pacers, outlasted the San Antonio Spurs, and toppled the supposedly unstoppable Golden State Warriors for the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history.
It's James' league, and as he says, "They're all trying to get me."