It’s time to play social media’s favorite game – which team got the better LeBron? To make life easier, we’re debating the only versions Paul Pierce went up against. He’s personally acquainted with LeBron James as an opponent from the second he arrived in the NBA. Their rivalry was at its peak when James was in Miami, so he might be a little biased in this game. But he saw a stark difference in King James going from his first stint in Cleveland to Pat Riley’s program. (Before cookies became the paid actor.)

While hosting the Celtics legend on Games with Names. Julian Edelman had a direct question. “What’s the difference between LeBron, Cavs LeBron, and Heat LeBron? Is there a difference?”

Pierce was equally blunt. “Way different.” After Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen showed what a triple-threat can do by winning the 2008 title, the Miami Heat went nuclear in the 2010 free agency. They got LeBron James through The Decision, signed Chris Bosh, and moved pieces to keep Dwyane Wade with a core like Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller. The Miami-Boston rivalry was pretty intense back then, with Pierce noticing James isn’t the same guy he went up against in Cleveland.

“I thought he was faster, stronger, better when he got to Miami,” he said about James.”It was crazy because I remember… I sat out the first game we played him in Miami, I believe, and I was just watching, and I was like, I couldn’t believe how it looked like he was a faster, stronger player at the time.”

It wasn’t the super team effect. Pierce credits the background characters of the Miami Big3 for an improved Bron. “He got under the Spoelstra umbrella, which is like Pat Riley… they don’t mess around in that camp. They like, ‘you got to be in major shape. You got to hit certain goals.'”

Oh yes, the famous 2010 training camp at Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field in Florida. By the Big 3 era, Pat Riley had moved on to an executive role and gave Erik Spoelstra the coaching reins. The Heat Culture these two created was both feared and admired by other teams. Pierce was almost jealous of it.

The Truth about LeBron James and the Big 3

The Cleveland Cavaliers built their entire team and personality around The Akron Hammer. But that first one just wasn’t it. By his first free agency, LeBron James dramatized the entire trade scene (and probably why we watch his trade moves like a Bravo reunion special) with his ‘Decision.’ Bron arrived in Miami for not one, not two, or how many ever championships. But work needed to be done.

Not surprisingly, Pat Riley also takes credit for creating a championship-winning Bron. “LeBron is a great player, but before he came to us, he was banging his head against the wall like all great players that can’t win,” Riley said in 2019. “His first year [in Miami] was somewhat convoluted, from the standpoint of chemistry. As much as those guys talked around it, you had three significant players who never really got on the same page. They never let it fester, but they never spoke about it way they should have.”

Riley had to equalize the power balance in the Big 3, and rigorous standards were it. Here, James went from carrying the team alone to sharing responsibility with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Pierce’s recollection of that Miami Heat was, “probably the strictest, most disciplined team in the NBA at the time.”

Miami and Boston were two teams in the East with three stars each, which made for intense matchups. In 2012, Ray Allen left the Celtics mid-season for the Heat, which Truth had some bitter feelings about. In that 2013 campaign, the Celtics and Heat rivalry peaked with the Ray Allen conflict. He’d end up winning his second chip with Bron and the Big 3.

The complicated feelings aside, Pierce was awed by how Riley shaped James. “It was just like, ‘Dang.’ And he got under that. And so it looked like he got even better. I think that’s peak LeBron for me.”

Pierce proceeded to explain that it was easy to defend against Cavs Bron because his jumpshot was inconsistent then. That changed in Miami. James won his first two titles with D-Wade and Bosh. If Wade is accurate, Riley’s strict cookie policy was the breaking point that drove James back to Cleveland and won his third ring. So maybe Pierce is onto something.