Euroleague Champion Slams LeBron James for Ruining NBA, Calls Him “Little Girl”

Pero Antic and LeBron James have a history that goes back further than a podcast rant. In Game 2 of the 2015 Eastern Conference Finals, with the Hawks trailing the Cavaliers, Antic shoved an airborne James as he drove to the basket, a hard foul that drew a flagrant call and became one of the defining physical moments of that series.

More than a decade later, Antic, a three-time Euroleague champion, made it clear that the shove wasn't just playoff aggression - it reflected exactly how he felt about James then, and still does now.

"I can't watch the NBA anymore," Antic said on the Jao Mile Podcast. "They're comparing him to Jordan and Kobe. What? He's like a little girl, always begging for something, then he flops and nags."

Asked directly whether he felt the same way during his playing days, Antic didn't soften it. "Of course," he said.

Antic, who went undrafted in 2004 and didn't reach the NBA until signing with Atlanta in 2013 at age 31, built his case around two specific chapters of James' career.

The first is the all-time scoring record. James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA's leading scorer in 2023, a chase Antic characterized as calculated rather than being real.

"LeBron ruined the NBA in one way," he said. "Oh, I'm going to chase the scoring title on purpose so that nobody ever catches me."

The second target was James' well-documented wish to play alongside his son. That wish became reality in 2024, when the Lakers selected Bronny James with the 55th pick, reuniting father and son on the same NBA roster for the first time.

Antic's take: "Oh, I want my son to play with me" treated the moment less as a feel-good story and more as evidence of James bending the league around his own preferences.

Antic's criticism isn't coming from a neutral source, and that's part of what makes it notable. He faced James in nine career matchups (six in the regular season and three in the postseason) during his brief two-season NBA run: When James was with the Heat in 2013-14 and with the Cavaliers team in 2014-15 that went on to beat Atlanta in four games that series.

The physical approach he took in the series lines up directly with the complaint he's voicing now, that LeBron James draws contact and sells it rather than absorbing it the way the game's other legends did.

After 2014-15, Antic moved out of the NBA and signed with Turkish team Fenerbahçe, winning the Turkish Cup in 2016, and his third Euroleague championship in 2017.

Meanwhile, James enters his 24th NBA season with a new team in the Philadelphia 76ers.