{"id":733777,"date":"2026-05-14T02:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/733777\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T02:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:24:16","slug":"cam-newton-laughs-off-bizarre-rich-paul-claim-about-lebron-james-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/733777\/","title":{"rendered":"Cam Newton laughs off bizarre Rich Paul claim about LeBron James’ childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rich Paul is at it again with an unusual defense of LeBron James, and this time Cam Newton is stepping in to dispute it.<\/p>\n

In a recent clip posted by the\u00a0Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast, Paul claimed<\/a> that James is a more unselfish player because unlike Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, he grew up in a single-parent household.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at LeBron, LeBron\u2019s mom was 16 when she had him as a child,\u201d Paul said after explaining that Jordan and Bryant each grew up with both parents around. \u201cNow, he spent a lot of time by himself, right? He did not develop\u2026taking the last shot over three people is a selfish gene. That don\u2019t make you having killer instinct. That\u2019s a selfish behavior. That\u2019s a gene.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul, who runs Klutch Sports and has represented James for nearly two decades, later added that James\u2019 style of play is built around his desire to \u201cbefriend people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPsychologically, when you spend the time that you spent by yourself, quite naturally, you want to do what? You want to befriend people, and you built a game off of making other guys look good,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n

Similar to Paul\u2019s recent revelation that the disdain for James around the league has led to Klutch losing clients, the clip displayed a surprising depth of thought from within James\u2019 camp over how to defend his reputation and legacy.<\/p>\n

But on Wednesday on his podcast 4th and 1<\/a>, Newton offered a simple retort.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody gotta tell Rich, brother \u2026 what the hell are you talking about?\u201d the former NFL MVP quipped.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s having a two-parent household got to do anything? As if to say, you\u2019ve gotta have a two-parent household to be labeled an unselfish player. Don\u2019t nobody care nothing about that. Do you got the clutch gene?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

If there is anyone who knows what it\u2019s like to have their family life and personality scrutinized as a star athlete, Newton is on the list. So while his response to Paul may not be as nuanced as Paul was hoping for when he put out the opinion, Newton is ultimately responding with the bottom line of how James will be analyzed historically if he wants to be considered the greatest NBA player ever.<\/p>\n

For good measure, Newton also reminded his audience that Paul is not exactly a neutral observer when it comes to James.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking about selfish basketball players? Man, hit the shot. I don\u2019t care nothing about your household,\u201d Newton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe over here trying to give all these reasonings about him being better \u2026 you\u2019ve got insider trading brother, because you are who you are to LeBron. And I\u2019m mad that Wallo even allowed him to just keep going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Paul has made more of a name for himself in the media, doing a press tour around his memoir and launching a podcast with Max Kellerman, he has proven to be a thoughtful voice on the big-picture issues facing the NBA and its players. However, that may work against Paul when he goes to such great lengths to defend James.<\/p>\n

In this case, Newton\u2019s blunt dismissal of Paul\u2019s convoluted theory about how James grew up compared with other greats reveals that Paul is too biased to fight media battles on James\u2019 behalf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rich Paul is at it again with an unusual defense of LeBron James, and this time Cam Newton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[86189,7,52619,185,564],"class_list":["post-733777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-4th-and-1-with-cam-newton","tag-basketball","tag-cam-newton","tag-lebron-james","tag-rich-paul"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116570558664259953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733777","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=733777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}