It is no secret that Skip Bayless loves to level unwarranted criticism at LeBron James. Recently, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer announced that he will be changing back from No. 6 to No. 23 out of respect for Bill Russell.
Bayless got word about James number switch and went on one of his classic Twitter rants about the “phony GOAT” as he famously calls the Lakers superstar.
Bayless Unhinged
Bayless has a lot of free time on his hands with his show being temporarily suspended due to a rebranding. Shannon Sharpe spent almost seven years as the co-host of Fox Sports 1’s “Undisputed” alongside Bayless. The Hall of Fame tight end moved on in June after the NBA Finals concluded, and Bayless has reportedly had a hard time replacing the huge entertaining void left behind by Sharpe.
So, the always-critical Bayless decided he needed to release some pent up frustration and took to his Twitter account to rant about James. He started his week of “LeBron rants” on July 11 when he released a snippet of his podcast where he discussed why James will have a chance to win his fifth NBA title next season. Of course, Bayless gave the credit to Lakers’ general manager Rob Pelinka for re-signing Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura.
Next, Bayless start to fire off some tweets.
“I believe LeBron will change back to No. 23 for 2 reasons: 1) to honor Bill Russell and 2) to resend the absurd message he’s now, as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, the GOAT, better than Jordan. Only fools believe that. LeBron James wearing 23 is a disgrace.” he wrote.
Then, he ended his rant with a two-minute video explaining the things he just tweeted. In the video, he called James “insecure” and a “blame deflector.”
No.6 to No.23
In 2009, James said that he would change his jersey number to No. 6 in honor of Michael Jordan. At the time, he stated that no one should wear the No. 23 and it should be retired by every NBA franchise. James wore the No. 6 from 2009-2013 as a member of the Miami Heat but went back to No. 23 when he returned back to Cleveland and his first three seasons with the Lakers, which was from 2014-2021.
He changed back to No. 6 in 2021 but wanted to change the number again after Russell passed away last summer. The timing of their announcement made it impossible for the league to make enough replica James jerseys for him to change his number ahead of the start of last season.
James led the NBA last season in jersey sales, according to NBA.com.
The NBA retired the No. 6 league-wide last summer following Russell’s death but allowed the current players who were already wearing the number to continue to wear it if they chose to do so. It was the first time the NBA ever retired a player’s number throughout the entire league.
