LeBron James taking 'Trump approach' with GOAT comment, Celtics exec suggests

Boston Celtics executive Danny Ainge appeared to be taken aback after Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James deemed himself the greatest basketball player of all-time over the weekend.

James said in an episode of “More Than An Athlete” that overcoming a 3-1 deficit against the Golden State Warriors and winning the 2016 NBA title for the Cleveland Cavaliers made him the greatest.

Ainge, who won two titles with the Celtics as a player and one as an executive, was a bit more skeptical when he spoke about James’ comments on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Toucher & Rich” Show on Thursday.

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“His career's not over,” he said. “I'd just like to—why he's saying that, I don't know. Maybe he thinks that that sells. Maybe he's taking the Donald Trump approach and trying to sell himself. I don't know.”

Ainge did, however, say James at least belonged in the greatest of all-time conversation.

“Obviously LeBron is in every conversation with who is the greatest player of all time,” he said. “But time will tell. I don't know if anyone knows who the greatest of all time is, because the years are so different.”

James reignited the debate with his comments seen in a snippet on the UNINTERRUPTED Twitter handle.

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“That moment right there made me the greatest player of all-time, that’s what I felt,” he said, referring to winning a championship with the Cavaliers. “I was super, super ecstatic to win one for Cleveland because of the 52-year drought. The first wave of emotion was everyone saw me crying. That was all for 52 years of everything in sports going on in Cleveland. And then after I stopped, I was like, ‘That one right there made you the greatest player of all-time.’”