LeBron James Changes His Mind On Toughest NBA Player He Has Ever Guarded

LeBron James has changed his mind over who has been the toughest player he has had to guard during his long and illustrious career in basketball.

The small forward has cemented his status as on the greatest basketball players to have played in the NBA thanks to his exploits on the court over more than 20 years.

James has become NBA Champion four times across a career which has seen him represent the Cleveland Cavaliers across two spells, Miami Heat and now the LA Lakers.

He has also been named the NBA's Most Valuable Player on four occasions, while he also has a quartet of NBA Finals MVP accolades to his name.

James - who has also claimed three Olympic gold medals with the US basketball team at Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Paris 2024 - made history in February 2023 when he surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA highest ever points scorer.

Back in 2014, James was asked via a Q&A on Twitter who was the toughest player he has guarded during his career in the NBA.

On that occasion, James responded with two players in the form of Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant.

Anthony ended his career as a team-mate of James at the Lakers, while Durant is currently on the roster with the Houston Rockets.

LeBron James. (Image: Getty)

But just this week, James changed his mind and gave a fresh name for the toughest player he has ever had to guard - and that man is called Derrick Tarver from his days at college basketball side Akron Zips.

Speaking in an interview with Complex, James said: "Oh man. A kid that we grew up with, it’s like our brother now, his name is Derrick Tarver. We grew up, all grew up on the same side of town, but when we were all growing up, he’s older than me.

"He’s Maverick’s age. So he’s like two or three years older than me, same age as Maverick. But like, he was just stronger than everybody at like f**king 10, like 10 years old, lefty, brolic, stronger than everybody. And you knew what he was going to do. And it was no way he was going to stop it.

"He still think he can cook me now. And when he see this, he going to like 'I can still cook you now. He can't cook me no more though."

It is from James' younger days in basketball for and Tarver returned the compliment to the legend on Instagram.

On his stories, Tarver wrote: "My back hurts just thinking about playing you in ones."

And James responded by posting on his stories: "We had more than enough battles growing up for damn sure!"