Basketball

I want to win, losing doesn’t sit well with me – LeBron James

Los Angeles Lakers talisman LeBron James is still hungry to win at all costs in the ongoing NBA. The Lakers have won their last five matches on the bounce, which is their second-best of the season.

James, is still going strong at 38 and he still has the stomach for a fight. The veteran is now less than 500 points away from overtaking the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time tally of 38,397 points and he is expected to reach the milestone in the upcoming months.

However, James said creating new records or making new ones in a losing cause was something that never attracted him. James still wants to make a winning contribution to his team and give his best.

“I mean, I know how to put the ball in the hole,” James said in an interview with ESPN. “When I say I’m not a scorer, I say it in a sense of, it’s never been the part of my game that defines me. … But there’s an argument to it. When you look at how long this record has stood and the great Kareem, being able to accomplish something like that.

“But it won’t be for me to discuss because I’ve never felt that way.”

“I want to win. [The losing is] not sitting well with me,” James said. “I don’t like having accomplishments, and it don’t feel right, when it comes in a losing effort. … So as we sit here right now as a franchise and as a team that’s below .500 — we’ve been playing some good basketball as of late, but we want to and I want to win at the highest level. Breaking records or setting records or passing greats in a losing effort has never been a DNA of mine.”

James revealed he doesn’t play for records as he was averaging around 30 in the previous season but didn’t turn out to play for the Lakers in the dead-rubber matches.

“Me being out on the floor, trying to get the scoring [title] in games that don’t matter, it felt so corny to me. So, I was like, I’m not even going [to play],” he said. “So that has never mattered to me unless it was about winning.”

The Lakers will next take on Denver Nuggets on Monday night.