PHOENIX - Celtic legend Bill Russell thinks LeBron James can "come close" to achieving his 11 championships and believes the hype of him leaving Cleveland is just that - hype.
"He's the only guy whose young enough to come close to some of my championships," Russell said last night at a press conference to announce the NBA Finals MVP Award will be named after him. "He'll have a long-enough career he can come close. [He] won't make it. But he'll come close."
Asked if he would like to see King James stay put in Cleveland like Russell did in Boston for all his career, Russell said, "I would never ever give advice to these guys. In order to be a great player you have to be smart. You can't be dumb to be a great player. To get to where LeBron is, he got there without my help.
"Whatever he thinks is important, but I have the feeling the idea of him leaving, he did not generate that idea. And so someone said he's probably going to leave and it went from there."
James, in his strongest statement yet he may stay in 2010 and not join the Knicks, said Friday, "I don't know. I'm very happy with my team right now. We're playing great basketball. So I have not reason to even think about leaving right now."