The Bulls coach says he's "not big" on comparisons and says both LeBron James and Michael Jordan are stellar players.
View full sizeJohn Kuntz / PDChicago coach Vinny Del Negro has a point . . . LeBron James is only 25, so there is plenty of time to make comparisons.Chicago coach Vinny Del Negro said it’s impossible to compare LeBron James and his idol, Bulls legend Michael Jordan.
“They’re different,” Del Negro told Chicago reporters on Wednesday. “”You had Larry [Bird] and Magic [Johnson] who took it to a level and Michael took it to another level. I’m not big on comparing guys just because I don’t think it’s fair. To compare anybody to Michael isn’t fair because of his MVPs and championships. LeBron is only 25 with a long career left. Obviously, they’re both unbelievable players.”
Looking ahead: James is likely to win his second MVP award in a couple of weeks. He admits this one would be special because of everything the Cavs went through in order to post the league’s best record in the regular season.
“It definitely is a blessing, a humbling experience to be able to do that if it happens,” he said Wednesday. “A lot of teams have had injuries, and we were one of those teams. We lost a lot of key guys for a long period of time — eight weeks, six weeks, five weeks. We lost Z [Zydrunas Ilgauskas] for 30 days. We lost a lot of key guys, and guys were able to step up. That’s why you give a lot of credit to the teammates because they continued to stay ready and continued to play at a high level.”
Asked if James would hold the ceremony at his alma mater, ‘St. Vincent St. Mary High School, again, he smiled and said, “I don’t know yet. I’ve got to wait for the announcement first. I don’t like jumping the gun on anything.”
Well-rounded: James doesn’t like all the attention on his 40 points, 15 in the fourth quarter, that helped the Cavs win Game 2 of the series, 112-102. He also had eight assists.
“I feel like my presence on the court as an individual automatically gets my teammates involved,” he said. “No matter what’s going on throughout the course of a game, I’m always playing for the better of the team. When I’m on the court, I’m always looking to get guys involved and get myself involved. That’s just the nature of my game. Even in the fourth quarter I had the other day, I was still able to get guys involved. It’s just sometimes what I do overshadows the rest of the guys sometimes.”
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