{"id":583845,"date":"2026-02-05T10:13:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/583845\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T10:13:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:13:48","slug":"lebron-james-calls-out-nba-bums-over-tyrese-haliburton-disrespect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/583845\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James Calls Out NBA ‘Bums’ Over Tyrese Haliburton Disrespect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several NBA<\/a> players have been tagged as the most overrated by their colleagues in a publication’s annual survey before, but Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> superstar LeBron James<\/a> thinks they are completely wrong for giving that title to Indiana Pacers<\/a> guard Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n

James blasted the take last year and doubled down on it<\/a> on his own podcast, where he recently had the Pacers star as guest.<\/p>\n

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They discussed a wide range of topics, including how some so-called analysts just want something to talk about and push narratives. They also expressed disapproval of people’s obsession with stat sheets instead of watching the game.<\/p>\n

“I know you don’t care, I don’t care, we use it as fuel,” James said.<\/p>\n

“But we have too many watchers of stat sheets. \u2026 Everything in the whole narrative of our game is getting a bucket and if he’s not a bucket getter, then he’s not great. He’s overrated, he ain’t a bucket-getter.”<\/p>\n

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\"Indiana<\/p>\n

Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton celebrates a made shot.Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

(Brad Penner-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

The Lakers star then expressed disgust about how the two-time All-Star got disrespected by his own colleagues. James even had choice of words to those who branded his guest as overrated.<\/p>\n

“I just think it’s just ridiculous sometimes and the fact that some of our counterparts and colleagues even fed into that [expletive] too\u2026 probably the bums of our league but we won’t get into that,” James shared.<\/p>\n

The Lakers star was among the few to immediately speak out against overrated tags placed on Haliburton. He turned to X in May last year to slam those voters<\/a> after witnessing the Pacers punish the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.<\/p>\n

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Haliburton hit clutch shots after clutch shots to lead the Pacers to series wins over the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>, the Cavs and the New York Knicks<\/a>. They had a chance to win it all, but he suffered an Achilles injury in the first quarter of the NBA Finals Game 7 against the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>. His teammates bowed to the Western Conference giants without him, falling 103-91.<\/p>\n

Haliburton is not expected to return for the struggling Pacers this season, as he remains focused on a full recovery. However, he’s been busy with his side gig as a player contributor<\/a> for NBA on Prime’s coverage.<\/p>\n

Related: Pacers Star Tyrese Haliburton Lands New Role Amid NBA Season<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Feb 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the NBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several NBA players have been tagged as the most overrated by their colleagues in a publication’s annual survey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,193,126,185,150,121,6,191,179,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-583845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","10":"tag-indiana-pacers","11":"tag-lebron-james","12":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","13":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","17":"tag-tyrese-haliburton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116017500970384475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}