LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Pat Riley, Jimmy Butler


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DW: Not responsible for a superteam. Maybe responsible for players getting together and making a decision. I don’t know what was done that preceded us. We definitely watched Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman. We definitely watched Magic Johnson play with many great Hall of Fame players. We watched Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, and so forth. We’ve seen it before.

I think we did it in the time of social media and in a time that normally, from what it looked like from afar, organizations were the ones making the trades and the moves to bring these superteams together. We did it at a time when it was controversial because it was players deciding to do it in the middle of their primes. You see guys getting together a little older sometimes.

You feel responsible for players understanding their power. Even though I’m on this side of it now, I still love to see players understand their power. How you utilize it is on you when it comes to good or bad, but at least you understand it. I didn’t understand that we had any power when I first came in. The organizations usually did all the things, and you just hope for the best. We kind of changed that a little bit in this generation, but I can’t say we were the first ones to do that.

I don’t feel responsible for superteams. The league has had that throughout.



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