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Utah Jazz legend and Basketball Hall of Fame member John Stockton called out LeBron James during a recent interview when discussing the way James allegedly chooses his teammates.
Stockton, 61, is considered one of the league’s greatest point guards of all-time and still leads the NBA all-time with 15,806 assists.
But these days, he may be more famous for his media appearances after his retirement.
Take, for instance, his strong stances on vaccines in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stockton stirred up more drama recently during an appearance on the DNP-CP podcast where he took aim at LeBron James.
Stockton and two hosts discussed a number of topics, including his hesitance to appear on ESPN’s Last Dance documentary, which he called a “puff piece” about Michael Jordan.
But perhaps more head-turning were his comments about James.
The hosts asked Stockton for his thoughts on James using his superstar influence to dictate the rosters of his teams.
“It would be maddening as a teammate to know that you can be expendable for one of his guys that he thinks he needs to play with,” Stockton said.
To his credit, Stockton then made a point to state that he is not in the Lakers front office every day and that he doesn’t know James is dictating things. But he did say that it “appears” he is.
“The iffiness it causes with the team, the iffiness it causes upstairs, I don’t like it either,” he continued. “…I like when guys just tighten their belt up and say ‘you know what, let’s go to work. We just gotta get better.'”
To James’ credit, he’s a four-time NBA champion. Stockton played his entire NBA career for the Jazz and reached the NBA Finals in both 1997 and 1998, but both times Utah lost lost to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
So maybe James is onto something?