Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: ‘LeBron Doesn’t Have Anything To Prove To Anyone’

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played 14 of his 20 seasons for the Los Angeles Lakers. If you ask him, he will say that LeBron James deserves to be added to the list of Lakers greats.

“He’s already shown he’s still the complete player that the Lakers wanted so I don’t think he needs to worry about that,” Abdul-Jabbar said Monday during a phone interview while attending the grand opening of NBA Experience at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. “They just needed to put the right pieces in place around him. You can’t win a world championship with just one elite player. You need some help and I think he has that now.”

Abdul-Jabbar didn’t want to make any predictions regarding the championship, but he says that LeBron, Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins have a chance to win a title.

“If he plays well and the team is contending and in the playoffs and advancing late in the playoffs, that should be enough,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone, but Lakers fans are still hungry and that’s a good sign. They want to win and they want to support the team.”

Shaquille O’Neal posted the photo LeBron did on his Instagram account, saying that he would play power forward with Abdul-Jabbar playing center on that “dream team.” Shaq also said that he would put Abdul-Jabbar and Chamberlain over himself when ranking the greatest Lakers centers.

 “It’s nice that Shaq would say that but I’ve always felt you can’t really compare eras,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “We don’t know how dominant George Mikan was in the late ’40s and early ’50s. It’s just hard to compare one era to the next.”

Winning a championship is a must, and Lakers fans need one.

“Davis is a complete NBA player,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “He can do it all on both ends of the court. He’s going to be a great addition and the fact that he has played with Cousins before in New Orleans and they’ll be teammates again will be good. They have some history, and now they’re going to team up with LeBron James.

“They have the nucleus of a very good team. The Lakers have put the right pieces together to be championship contenders this season.”