Before the [Cleveland Cavaliers](https://cavaliersnation.com/) used the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft on star LeBron James, former NBA forward Darius Miles, who was a member of the Cavaliers at the time, made some infamous comments regarding James during an interview.
> “I don’t think you can really just bring a high school player in and really just think your team gonna really turn around like that,” Miles said in part during the interview. “If he come, he can just hop on our bandwagon, and hopefully, we can do something big.”
More than two decades after Miles said what he said, he admitted in a recent podcast appearance that there was a method to his madness and that he was simply trying to protect a young James with his comments.
> “LeBron is a straight out of high school guy,” Miles said. “So, if you take — if you know anything about these cameras and interviews — you can take certain clips or certain answers, and you can clip it to make it look like something. But what really happened was I was defending LeBron, you know what I’m saying? I’m a country boy, and I didn’t have the proper teaching of how to talk in a interview, all that stuff. So, probably the words that I used probably sounded that way. But the all actuality is I was really defending him.”
Miles explained that he and James were actually close.
> “I knew LeBron,” he said. “LeBron used to come over my house. I’m at Thanksgiving dinner that year with LeBron. I’m hooping with LeBron. This is my guy, you know what I’m saying? His locker specifically got put next to mine because we have that relationship. And mind you, that interview was the year before he got there. So, if we had — if he felt that kind of way that I was talking about him like that, we would never have been as close as what we is. But how they edited and how they said, it is what it is. I don’t really get into all that, but I know I was defending him.”
While James and Miles evidently had a bond, they unfortunately weren’t teammates on the Cavaliers for a long time at all. James didn’t even spend one full season playing alongside Miles, as the latter was dealt to the [Portland Trail Blazers](https://ahnfiredigital.com/category/nba/portland-trail-blazers/) partway through James’ rookie campaign, the 2003-04 season.
Across 37 contests and 16 starts with the Cavaliers that season prior to being traded, Miles averaged 8.9 points per contest on 43.2 percent shooting from the field as well as 4.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 0.7 blocks and 0.7 steals per game.
Even though Miles didn’t mean anything malicious with his controversial comments about James, he couldn’t have possibly been more wrong with his take, as James instantly elevated the franchise back to relevance.
With a rookie James in the fold, the Cavaliers more than doubled their win total from the season prior. Cleveland won just 17 games in the 2002-03 regular season compared to 35 contests in the 2003-04 regular season. James took home the Rookie of the Year award and even finished in the top 10 in MVP voting in his first season after he averaged 20.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game.
The following season, the Cavs had a winning record, and after that, they became contenders in the Eastern Conference.
It’s good of Miles to clear the air and let folks know that he wasn’t trying to tear James down with his words all those years ago.