Iman Shumpert, a former teammate of LeBron James with the Cleveland Cavaliers, has a different opinion about who altered basketball.
NBA icon Shaquille O’Neal welcomed Shumpert on his show “The Big Podcast with Shaq” for their Monday episode. The 2016 champion claimed that the Los Angeles Lakers star had ruined basketball.
O’Neal claims that Stephen Curry’s three-point shooting skills revolutionized basketball. In his terms, “Curry ruined the NBA.” The four-time champion also cited the Golden State Warriors star as the one to blame for the league’s declining viewership.
Shaq stated in his podcast that the 3-point revolution encouraged teams to play the same, hindering creativity in their systems.
LeBron James’ former teammate, Shumpert, asserted that Curry did not “ruin the NBA.” Rather, he blamed the four-time MVP for the dominance of 3-pointers in teams’ strategies.
“When Bron made it okay for people to team up, it stopped making the star player have to come back with something added to their game… the man went to Miami [Heat]… Now everybody thinking like it’s cool, y’all could team up,” Shumpert said (23:11). “Now you create the three-headed snake out of Steph Curry now. Once they beat us [Cleveland Cavaliers], the two-pointer was gone. If you really break it down… it’s our fault. … If we didn’t lose that first championship, who’s shooting threes?”
“‘Cause y’all been telling, ‘Look, this was the formula y’all wanted, y’all said shoot it from half court, Steph did all that he still lost’. We continue to watch Bron at the end of the game… and you go to the block at the end of the game where you play at 15 feet.”
During the mid-2010s, Shumpert was part of the Cavaliers team that matched up against the Warriors in the NBA Finals for four straight years.
The two teams played against each other on the league’s biggest stage in 2015, with Curry and his squad taking home the Larry O’Brien trophy.
Former NBA star gets honest on defending LeBron James in the 2015 Finals
When they faced off, the Warriors put forward Andre Iguodala in charge of guarding LeBron James. Iggy received the Finals MVP trophy from the league in their first year of play in the Finals. The former Golden State forward didn’t feel like he deserved it.
Rather, the one-time All-Star said during his appearance at Kai Cenat’s livestream that Curry deserved the award.
Additionally, Iggy said he didn’t stop LeBron James but made it harder for him to produce offensively.
“I ain’t shutting him down; I just made it harder for him. Some guys make it harder for him than the other guys,” Iggy said.
