LeBron James has been a fan favorite for the most part of his 19 year NBA career. However, for a few years in the NBA, the King was the villain. After forming a ‘Big 3’ with the Miami Heat, fans turned against LeBron and called him a traitor. With a team full of serious talent, everyone expected them to win. But James couldn’t deliver on the biggest stage. In a recent interview, he looked back at the 2011 finals and blamed the loss on himself.

After making his big move to the Heat, Dwyane Wade, Bosh, and LeBron got into the finals. They were facing off against the Dallas Mavericks led by Dirk Nowitzki. Man for man, the Mavs were definitely at a disadvantage. But the biggest surprise came when LeBron went cold all series long. This brought in a lot of criticism towards him. However, he bounced back with back-to-back titles for Miami.

During a segment of ‘The Shop’, James elaborated on how he blames the 2011 loss on himself.

LeBron James comes out clean

While speaking about being successful, James spoke about an early lesson he learned. He said the first thing he took in was he can’t care about what people say. The mistake of caring about people’s opinions led to him losing out on a championship. James went on to say that the Heat lost the 2011 NBA finals because he wasn’t even present.

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He said: “My first year in Miami, I was down there, I wanted to prove everybody wrong. And I literally lost myself in the moment. I got all the way to the championship that year and lost. Afterward, I was like, we lost because I wasn’t even there.”

With his move to the Heat, all LeBron wanted to do was to prove the doubters wrong. However, in that process, he lost himself. So when it came time to deliver, the Akron Hammer couldn’t get the job done. He put up his worst NBA Finals performance averaging just 17.8 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 6.8 assists. The Heat were stunned in just six games as Dirk won one of the toughest championships.

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After the loss, James became subject to a lot of hate. However, after learning his lesson, he did not make the same mistake twice. The following years, LeBron James shut out the noise and went off in the finals. He won back-to-back Finals MVP for the Miami Heat. After that, he took the tough road and won a title with his hometown team, Cleveland Cavaliers. Tuning out the noise made James much more focused on his mission and helped him become successful.

It only goes to show that even the best need to fall sometimes to grow and become winners.