Every player on a winning team has a certain function to play. There are the stars, the role players, the enforcers and the leaders. When the Cleveland Cavaliers were competing for a championship from 2015 to 2018, it was easy to identify the roles of each player. LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were the star trio. Iman Shumpert, on the other hand, was a role player who had a specific assignment.
Known for his dependable three-point shooting and perimeter defense, Shumpert was a role player. He was given the role of being the team’s three-and-D, which he admitted that he didn’t enjoy. From 2015 to 2018, he had to deal with guarding Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson during their games in the Finals.
During the latest episode of “All In,” the former NBA player explained that he didn’t enjoy having that role. But since the club assigned him that job, he was unable to change it.
“People don’t understand how bad I hated that three-and-D role, I hated it. I think now I’m out of the league because I wouldn’t sign up for that. When I went to Sacramento I was playing combo guard,” Shumpert said. “Dave had me able to do my [stuff]. This is where I’m comfortable, and I’m guarding what I need to be guarding, so it’s like, I’m effective.”
But after being dealt to the Sacramento Kings by the Cleveland Cavaliers, Shumpert claimed that his position had changed. He was able to have more freedom offensively and become more of a combo guard player.
Although he won a championship in Cleveland, Shumpert enjoyed being part of the Kings.
“We come, we try to score fast, we try to score at a high rate. We have a lot of young bodies. It’s cool to be on a team where we don’t know who’s going to score it,” Shumpert said.
The Cleveland Cavaliers had all sorts of dysfunction in 2016
The fans only saw the result of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ efforts in 2016 when they won the championship. But behind their hard work, there were all sorts of dysfunction. Shumpert admitted that the team had a few problems along the way.
“We had, like, a squad that was like, do we wanna win so bad that we got all types of issues coming up. Like, you knew Kyrie wanted to be Batman, I didn’t wanna play two god no more. I don’t wanna share minutes with J.R. [Smith]. I actually like playing with J.R.,” Shumpert said. “We had all types of random little problems.”
Fortunately for the Cavaliers, the players all got on the same page and worked together to win the chip.
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Reign also writes NBA and WNBA news updates on Sportskeeda. He started as a feature writer for AirAlamo, an NBA website that covers the San Antonio Spurs. Some of his work can also be seen on Valley of the Suns, a Phoenix Suns-centric website, where he served as a contributing writer.
