LeBron James is as devoted a sports Dad as you’ll see, traveling with his sons’ AAU basketball teams to regional tournaments throughout the summer. At a recent event, James took son LeBron James Jr.’s team aside and offered up a pretty compelling motivational speech:
That video comes from the North Coast Blue Chips’ recent tournament in Las Vegas, where LeBron also attempted to peek in on the LaMelo Ball vs. Zion Williamson matchup before turning away for security concerns.
Here’s a full transcript of LeBron’s comments:
“Obviously I come around and watch from afar but y’all gotta understand that we come to a tournament, when y’all come to a tournament – everybody want to see y’all lose. Y’all don’t see that? Every time we do something good, it’s just us clapping for each other. Any time another team that we go against, the whole (expletive) crowd is going crazy. They want to see us lose. They want too see us lose. So we got to approach it like every time we go out to play, we gotta play for one another and nobody else. So we can’t have careless turnovers, can’t be out there lollygagging. I don’t care, like I told you, I don’t care if they can dunk, I don’t care if they (expletive) jump over the rim. Y’all in the game the whole game and y’all just let it slip away. They didn’t take the game; it wasn’t them. It was y’all. We gotta know every game we go out here they want to see us lose. Alright?”
The passion was there, yet James Sr. did hold back from unleashing any kind of an aggressive tirade against the team. Rather, he chose to use a close setback as a motivational tool for his son and his son’s young teammates. That’s good coaching, and perhaps parenting, too.