During a recent episode of his Mind The Game podcast, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James pushed back against the “bag” narrative.
“Everyone now has a narrative of this thing called, ‘I have a bag,’ or ‘He doesn’t have a bag.’ It bothers the f–k out of me,” James said.
“Everyone thinks just because you get a favorable matchup that it means it’s one-on-one time.
‘Let’s play ones.’ That’s all you hear the kids talk about now.”
“It’s this narrative of ‘oh I have a bag.’ Or he doesn’t have a bag. It bothers the f*ck out of me.”
LeBron is tired of bag talk in NBA discourse. pic.twitter.com/VvBydbknim
— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) March 27, 2024
James added, “This is not Jordan vs. Bird Nintendo. It’s five-on-five, and yes, if you have an opportunity to have a favorable matchup and you can beat your man – But realize something.
Most great teams are going to send help, and can you make the right reads?
Can you instill confidence in your teammates to when you’ve scored twice in that favorable matchup, do you know that the double is coming? … Some guys don’t wanna learn and won’t learn because they just wanna play ones.”
Former NBA star and Memphis Grizzlies guard Gilbert Arenas weighed on on his Gil’s Arena show, saying, “The definitions that’s coming into the game is coming from people that haven’t played the game.
They’re just watching it.
And they’re coining it, and it becomes overused and overrated…
Who gets buckets?
You can do 57 moves and score two points… Exerting too much energy to get a regular ass bucket.”
"Bag talk" is overrated because it's some Twitter sh*t that wasn't coined by people who play the game.
LeBron is right 💯 pic.twitter.com/6vg7JhPD8m
— Gilbert Arenas (@GilsArenaShow) March 27, 2024
This was an interesting discussion that James and Arenas have similar thoughts on.