LeBron James Reveals One of His All-Time Favorite NBA Teammates Without Hesitation
LeBron James Reveals One of His All-Time Favorite NBA Teammates Without Hesitation originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
LeBron James has spent 22 seasons in the NBA and appears to be gearing up for his 23rd—putting him on track to become the longest-tenured player in league history.
Advertisement
Over the course of his career, James has played alongside hundreds of teammates across three franchises: the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat, and now the Los Angeles Lakers, where he's spent the past seven seasons.
Recently, on an episode of the "Mind the Game" podcast—which he co-hosts with NBA legend Steve Nash—James and Nash previewed the upcoming NBA Finals matchup between the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Toward the end of the episode, while breaking down the Thunder's impressive roster, James couldn't help but direct some of that praise toward his former Lakers teammate and 2020 NBA champion, Alex Caruso, who has become a key contributor to Oklahoma City's success.
In the midst of his praise, James revealed that Caruso is one of his favorite teammates of all time—despite their relatively short time together.
'They come off the bench with one of my favorite teammates of all time in Alex Caruso, who is like the ultimate Swiss Army knife,' James said. 'We've literally seen him guard Giannis, we've seen him guard Jokic, we've seen him guard Ant, Julius Randle, Jamal Murray—he's taken on everyone this postseason.'
James continued, 'You look at the plus/minus after the game—AC will have five points, three rebounds, two assists—and his plus/minus will be a damn plus-17.'
The numbers back up the chemistry: when James and Caruso shared the court during their 560 minutes of regular-season play, the duo posted a staggering +18.6 net rating—the highest of any two-man lineup that logged over 500 minutes together.
Advertisement
Caruso has proven to be one of the missing pieces that helped push Oklahoma City over the hump. After trading Josh Giddey to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for Caruso this offseason, the Thunder have gone from a strong playoff team to legitimate NBA Finals contenders.
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Alex Caruso (9) celebrates after scoring against the Portland Trail Blazers on March 7, 2025 in Oklahoma City.Alonzo Adams/Imagn Images
The move, combined with the offseason addition of Isaiah Hartenstein and continued development of the roster—including MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, and key contributors like Cason Wallace, Aaron Wiggins, and Isaiah Joe—has elevated Oklahoma City into the league's elite.
Related: Charles Barkley Names Greatest Player in NBA History Without Hesitation
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 4, 2025, where it first appeared.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Broncos' Sean Payton Speaks Out On JK Dobbins' Team Visit
Broncos' Sean Payton Speaks Out On JK Dobbins' Team Visit originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Despite using their second round pick to select UCF running back, RJ Harvey, there is still a feeling that the Denver Broncos' RB room could use some reinforcements. Advertisement Jaleel McLaughlin, Audric Estime and Tyler Badie are all nice complementary, auxiliary pieces, but none feel like they can be part of a hard-hitting, one-two punch with Harvey. So it makes sense that the team planned a visit with free agent, and ex Charger and Raven, JK Dobbins on Thursday. And head coach, Sean Payton, had some complementary words to say about the former AFC West rival, per Mike Klis. 'Another good football player that we've seen firsthand." Payton said to the media on Thursday, "I've seen for a while the importance of that position group. We really like the group right now we're working with, it's just another opportunity to possibly bring in another good football player to help us win.' JK Dobbins, Baltimore RavensPaul Rutherford-Imagn Image Dobbins is not necessarily an earth-shatteringly big name, but he is certainly an excellent back who would undoubtedly be on a roster right now as the RB1 - or high end 2 - if it were not for consistent injuries that have threaten to derail his otherwise potential-filled career. Advertisement Even though the former second round pick missed four games in 2024, he still managed 905 rushing yards and 9 touchdowns, with an additional 153 receiving yards off of 32 receptions. Of the backs still left unsigned in the NFL, Dobbins has arguably the best case for being a true, quality starting back in the league - and could be an excellent mentor and teammate for Harvey over the next season or two. That is, if he does end up signing with the Broncos. Related: Broncos' Talanoa Hufanga Breaks Silence on Playing Alongside Patrick Surtain II This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 6, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
WCWS' mad carnival meets an NBA Finals stunner: Two days in Oklahoma City's sports vortex
OKLAHOMA CITY — To begin with, the Church of Thunder is not a church. There are a dozen pews, yes, but they were found on Facebook Marketplace. There is reverence, but it is aimed at the basketball game on a projector screen anchored to pallets of beer. This is why the people gather in a warehouse on Thursday. The biblical rains have passed. Time to praise and, with any luck, celebrate the local professional basketball franchise as it starts the NBA Finals about a mile away. Shai's will be done. Or something like that. Advertisement 'The little things we do have to cheer, we're going to cheer as loud as we can for them,' says Nick Williams, the co-owner of Lively Beerworks and founder of this ad hoc place of worship. At almost the same time, not even 15 minutes away, another event creates its own gravitational pull. The Women's College World Series championship round has a one-night head start and some complications from being an outdoor sport played after a deluge, but it, too, has thousands of people pushing through the gates to watch. A city that didn't exist a century and a half ago, a town off the major-sport grid when century started, is the latest magnetic north for sports. But seeing it is believing it. Two days, one city, two championship events separated by 7 miles and juxtaposed in scope and spirit. The people here might insist the local ethos threads them together. To an extent, this is true. But the Women's College World Series feels intimate, very much of this place even as the sport swells in popularity. The NBA Finals? That's an everywhere phenomenon, as hard as anyone tries to rope it in. And the local basketball club increasingly belongs to those far beyond city limits. The tension is kind of cool. There's ambition and audacity all over a big place that's big, but also isn't. By area, Oklahoma City is the 10th-largest city in the country. By population, it's 20th, and rising. 'The Modern Frontier' is the slogan on the digital billboard next to the Amtrak station, for visitors who need to know the gist. A town birthed by a high-noon land rush now has a light-rail loop and lovely botanical gardens with a THUNDER UP sign at the southeast corner. Also, there's an American Banjo Museum and a civic issues forum on the website OKC Talk that, as of June 4, was topped by a thread titled 'Urban Chickens.' Advertisement Put another way: In one of our nation's swiftest-growing cities, it's still not uncommon to hit a downtown crosswalk button and have your request granted instantly. And on the morning of the day everything starts happening, nothing much is happening. Fairly, eight tornados touching ground around here on Tuesday night might have stubbed some momentum. (The Pacers' team plane, as was widely noted, diverted to Tulsa for refueling after circling Will Rogers International Airport while a virile storm cell passed through.) In any case, this confluence of championship events officially begins with a Wednesday that's little more than an overcast Wednesday. There's 'Downtown OKC Day' festivities in a small green space across from the Chamber of Commerce building, but it's effectively two and a half hours of food trucks, music over loudspeakers and free swag around lunchtime. A few blocks away, on the park lawn where a pregame fan extravaganza will take place before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, people play Wiffle ball. The soundtrack is train horns and hedge trimmers. A vibe, it is not. Yet. Advertisement Then again, being here on these two days requires a little recalibration on what it means for something to happen. The Women's College World Series, or the championship round anyway, is not a rager. Not on this weekday. The mostly empty parking lot three hours before first pitch makes that clear. Cars arrive steadily, but there appear to be exactly two patches of tailgaters. Had Oklahoma earned a spot for the fifth consecutive season, the scene could be different. As it is, for a long while late Wednesday afternoon, the scene is a weekend travel softball tournament with a nicer stadium. And this is the point. This is the soul of the thing. No one goes to a state fair to hang out in the lot. You go in and do all the things. So it is at Devon Park, the softball capital of the world. The fans show up to wait — for the gates to open, for a chance to browse the official merchandise tent, in a line to meet some relatively famous local. In this case, the local is former Oklahoma All-American catcher Kinzie Hansen, a member of the Team USA softball roster. (No, Texas Tech alum, superfan and most famous quarterback alive Patrick Mahomes is not on hand.) The queue to meet Hansen snakes through the softball Hall of Fame well before the appointed 5:30 p.m. start time. LIMIT TO 1 ITEM PER PERSON, per the sign at the head of the line. Efficiency is paramount when people of all ages and allegiances fill and refill the space; a Texas fan even gets Hansen to smile and flash a 'Horns Down' sign in a picture for posterity. Advertisement 'Perfect,' Hansen says, and it's on to the next neon yellow orb to inscribe. Across the parking lot, there's less of a wait for a different kind of special guest: The Larry O'Brien Trophy, soon to be awarded to a new NBA champ, sits inside a small tent and is available for still-life picture-taking. (As long as patrons download the NBA app first, naturally.) Inside the park, along the third-base concourse, it's a bacchanal of artery-cloggers: a booth for funnel cakes and corn dogs, another for hand-popped kettle corn delivered in bags as big as a toddler, another for Big O's Pork barbecue fare. Red and black and burnt orange everywhere, broken up by more than a few club softball jersey color schemes. Some 12,000-plus, shoulder to shoulder, happily waiting to consume whatever's next. Is Texas Tech stretching an hour before the game something? Anything? Here, yes, apparently, as Red Raiders faithful line the first-base wall to watch. 'The fans showed out,' Texas coach Mike White says after a Game 1 win, cinched by a two-run single from Longhorns catcher Reese Atwood on what was supposed to be an intentional walk from Texas Tech ace NiJaree Canady. 'I've never had that happen to me,' Atwood says, not long after Canady could be heard sobbing in the hallway outside the interview room. Only in the throes of softball's mad carnival. Advertisement A slow burn removes the cloud cover the next day, putting some literal light on downtown visitors filling $10 pay lots and office-dwellers taking lunch breaks in Thunder gear. (It's not everyone. But it's enough to suggest a few peppy intra-office memos were sent this week.) For some, this will forever be an NBA franchise appropriated from elsewhere. For those who enjoy the team being here, however it got to the corner of Reno Avenue and Thunder Drive, it's likely motivation to double down on some parochiality: a metro area pulling a team close and shouting for more than 17 years. This return to the NBA Finals, though, might be loosening the grip. Everyone may have to learn to share. A young and energized group, led by the league's young and energized Most Valuable Player in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, is not darling. They're closer to the next version of the Golden State Warriors, mesmerizing young fans coast-to-coast and burrowing into their bandwagons. You can imagine a generation chopping it up about 'OKC' without caring a whole lot about what the letters stand for. Maybe the actual OKC is OK with that. Not far from Paycom Center, there's a Flaming Lips Alley and a Kings of Leon Lane and a Mickey Mantle Drive. Entities grounded around here, one way or another, that became property of a much wider world. This seems to be a matter of acceptance, not resentment. 'I don't do a whole lot of traveling anymore,' says Andrew Smith, Duncan, Okla., native and the general manager at Fassler Hall in the city's Midtown neighborhood. 'But if I was out in Chicago or in New Jersey and I saw people in a Thunder jersey, I would think that was amazing. Because it's our team.' Advertisement Finding Fassler Hall isn't entirely intuitive — it's off the street, with an arrow pointing you up some stairs in the same direction of an orthodontic arts office — thus the rebranding. Massive white Gothic lettering on the back wall of the building, in fact: Thunder Hall. The same logo adorns the black T-shirt worn by staffers, too. A German-inspired beer hall all-in on the local pro basketball outfit since wintertime, when the Thunder contacted some of the larger local venues and floated the idea of establishing official watch party spots. Thus the soccer-style team and playoff banners hanging from the ceiling on the inside. To be part of this is good business, of course, but also something more. 'We get a lot of pride out of how well the Thunder does,' Smith says. 'It shows we can be a top-tier city and a top-tier state.' By 3 p.m. on game day, there's already one dude with a stein and an orange Gilgeous-Alexander jersey at a picnic table on the massive patio, with a clear view of the outdoor big screen past the pingpong tables. What's a small trickle of patrons at this hour is expected to multiply into a capacity crowd, just as it did for each of the Western Conference finals games. First, a most appropriate prelude. The skies darken. The wind picks up. A cell of thunder, lighting and heavy rain consumes the area, as if literal forces of nature wished to remind everyone what sort of city claims the Oklahoma City Thunder, no matter how many people claim it elsewhere. It's a suboptimal outcome for the home team's standard pregame outdoor fan experience at Scissortail Park, which is forced into its own holding pattern while the weather blasts the grounds. It's still nothing quite like the line that spit out those tornados on the eve of the NCAA softball championship round. So, as Texas Tech and Texas prepare for Game 2 a few miles away, there might be some worries about long delays and a longer night. But there's a roof on the Paycom Center. And one over the headquarters of Lively Beerworks, a.k.a. the Church of Thunder, and all the local laic worship spots like it. Advertisement The show rolls on here. And everywhere. As with most good ideas revolving around sports and adult beverages, the Church of Thunder was born out of the desire to have a fun time watching basketball — and the lack of available bleachers to rent. 'We had the space, and I was like, why not?' Williams says. The team becoming one of the best in the world turned it into a genius business plan. For Game 1 on Thursday, the extra chairs stationed at the end of the dozen pews aren't enough. Out come more white folding chairs, creating six additional rows of seating. It's still not sufficient. Late-comers stand on the side and scramble for slivers of space. So it goes with services on a holiday. The first bucket for the home team is met with cheers and a thudding chorus of inflatable Thunderstix. So is the second. Briefly, the signal goes out and the screens go black. Everyone boos. Seconds later the signal reboots. Everyone cheers. A 3-pointer from Gilgeous-Alexander follows and the place is up for grabs as much as a smallish warehouse can be. Advertisement A single basket or quarter or half or game isn't worth living and dying over. The entire history of the NBA proves that. It's not terribly different up the road at the softball championships, where even the most consequential sequence can be upended by a bit of ridiculousness no one has seen before. And yet, over two nights, the sports-goers in this city are dead and resurrected a lot. By the end of Thursday night, with Mahomes indeed in attendance at Devon Park, Canady finds redemption in the circle and Texas Tech hangs on by a half a fingernail to win 4-3 and force a decisive Game 3 against Texas. The Thunder, in some ways bearing expectations that are more than a hundred years old, collapse under it. Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton's go-ahead shot with 0.3 seconds remaining foists a 111-110 Pacers win upon an expectant city. Postgame lamentations fill the streets for a minute. But the night gets much quieter, much quicker, than anyone here might have hoped. This is Oklahoma City. The truth of this place is a torment and a refuge. Anything can happen now. Advertisement The Athletic This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Oklahoma City Thunder, NBA, Culture, College Sports, 2025 NBA playoffs, A1: Must-Read Stories, Women's College Sports 2025 The Athletic Media Company
San Francisco Chronicle
24 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Mr. Clutch: Tyrese Haliburton keeps delivering in the ultimate moments for the Pacers
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — You are Tyrese Haliburton. You went to the Eastern Conference finals last year and got swept. You went to the Olympics last summer and didn't play much. You came into this season with high expectations and your Indiana Pacers got off to a 10-15 start. And on top of that, some of your NBA peers evidently think you are overrated. You got angry. 'I think as a group, we take everything personal,' Haliburton said. 'It's not just me. It's everybody. I feel like that's the DNA of this group and that's not just me.' The anger fueled focus, the focus became confidence, and the confidence delivered a 1-0 series lead in the NBA Finals. Haliburton's penchant for last-second heroics — one of the stories of these playoffs — showed up again Thursday night, his jumper with 0.3 seconds left going into finals lore and giving the Pacers a 111-110 win over the heavily favored Oklahoma City Thunder. The Pacers led for 0.0001% of that game. It was enough. 'When it comes to the moments, he wants the ball,' Pacers teammate Myles Turner said. 'He wants to be the one to hit that shot. He doesn't shy away from the moment and it's very important this time of the year to have a go-to guy. He just keeps finding a way and we keep putting the ball in the right positions and the rest is history.' Haliburton is 4 for 4 in the final 2 seconds of fourth quarters and overtimes in these playoffs, all of those shots either giving the Pacers a win or sending a game into OT before they won it there. The rest of the NBA, in those situations this spring: 4 for 26, combined. If Haliburton takes one of those beat-the-clock shots in the first three quarters of games in these playoffs, he's a mere mortal, just 1 for 7 in those situations. But with the game on the line, he's perfect. 'You don't want to live and die with the best player on the other team taking a game winner with a couple seconds left,' Thunder guard Alex Caruso said. No, especially when that best player on the other team is Haliburton. Just ask Milwaukee. Or Cleveland. Or New York. They could have all told Oklahoma City who was going to take the big shot and what was probably going to happen. Against the Bucks on April 29, it was a layup with 1.4 seconds left that capped a rally from seven points down in the final 34.6 seconds of overtime. Final score: Pacers 119, Bucks 118, and that series ended there. In Cleveland on May 6, it was a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left for a 120-119 win — capping a rally from seven points down in the final 48 seconds. At Madison Square Garden against the Knicks on May 21, a game the Pacers trailed 121-112 with 51.1 seconds left, he hit a jumper with no time left to force OT and Indiana would win again. All those plays came with a little something extra. His father, John Haliburton, got a little too exuberant with Giannis Antetokounmpo after the Bucks game and wasn't allowed to come to the next few games; the ban has since been lifted. Haliburton did a certain dance that the NBA doesn't like much after the shot against the Cavs. He made a choke signal, a la what Pacers legend Reggie Miller did against New York a generation earlier, after hitting the shot against the Knicks. But on Thursday, all business. These finals are a long way from over, and he knows it. Game 2 is Sunday night in Oklahoma City. 'Again, another big comeback but there's a lot more work to do,' Haliburton said. 'That's just one game. And this is the best team in the NBA, and they don't lose often. So, we expect them to respond. We've got to be prepared for that. We got a couple days to watch film, see where we can get better.' Haliburton is in his first year of a supermax contract that will pay him about $245 million along the way. He has the Olympic gold medal from last summer and surely will be a serious candidate to play for USA Basketball again at the Los Angeles Games in 2028. He's now a two-time All-NBA selection. And he's officially a certified postseason, late-game hero. Three more wins, and he'll be an NBA champion as well. The anger is gone. Haliburton was all smiles after Game 1, for obvious reasons. 'Ultimate, ultimate confidence in himself,' Turner said. 'Some players will say they have it but there's other players that show it, and he's going to let you know about it, too. That's one of the things I respect about him. He's a baller and a hooper and really just a gamer.' And in his NBA Finals debut, Haliburton reminded the world that's the case. 'This group never gives up," Haliburton said. 'We never believe that the game is over until it hits zero, and that's just the God's honest truth. That's just the confidence that we have as a group, and I think that's a big reason why this is going on.' ___
