Lakers News: LeBron James Gives Former Finals Foe His Flowers In Light Of Major Honor

An old antagonist of Los Angeles Lakers All-Star forward LeBron James showed up to watch his Dallas Mavericks trounce LBJ's Lakers on Christmas Day, 124-115.

14-time Dallas All-Star power forward Dirk Nowitzki, who won his lone title against The Chosen One's "Heatles"-era Miami Heat in 2011, was in town to see his brand-new statue, which depicted his signature shot, the one-legged fadeaway jumper. The immortal Dirk sculpture will live forever in front of American Airlines Arena.

Will current All-NBA point guard Luka Doncic (the NBA's reigning Western Conference Player of the Week) join his former teammate with a statue of his own some day? Time will tell, but he sure looked unbeatable tonight.

The 23-year-old scored 32 points for Dallas on 9-of-16 shooting from the field and 12-of-16 shooting from the charity stripe, along with nine assists, nine rebounds and two steals.

"Before the [unveiling] of what the statue would look like, I already knew what the statue was going to look like. It had to be a fadeaway on one leg. It had to be," James said. "No question about it."

"Dirk is a legend. He's an icon. I think he's the greatest international player ever. I'd put him right there with Manu [Ginobili]. What he brought here, what he brought to this city. That boy was cold, man. Dirk was cold. He revolutionized what a stretch-four big can look like. Put the ball on the ground, finish above the rim, in his earlier years. And then just mastering that in-between game as his career got a couple years down the line. Then, he started taking it out to the three point line."

"You couldn’t put a small on him because he was too big. You really couldn’t put a slow big on him because he was too quick with his first step early on. You could never block his shot because he shot it behind his head, kind of like Larry Bird-esque. Dirk, you can talk about top power forwards and top players of all time at that position. He was right up there with [Charles] Barkley, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Kevin McHale, and those guys. They tough. Dirk was tough."

Will the Lakers reward LeBron with his own statue outside Crypto.com Arena when the time comes for such a decision? Does he need to win a few more titles? One was enough for Jerry West, but he was a lifelong Laker. James has now spent more time as a Laker than he did on the Heat (but he's won more titles there), but he's still logged the vast majority of his NBA career with the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

Whatever happens, James has suggested we'll have a good long while to wait.