"King James" is confident he'll be NBA royalty by the time he's ready to leave the game.
"I'm going to be one of the top four that's ever played this game, for sure," LeBron James said in an interview that will air on NBA TV on Monday. "And if they don't want me to have one of those top four spots, they'd better find another spot on that mountain. Somebody's gotta get bumped, but that's not for me to decide. That's for the architects."
James, who has previously talked about being one of the greats of all time, was responding to a question during the interview when asked to name his personal Mount Rushmore, the four greatest players of all time.
James' first three selections, which he called the "easy three," were Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. He deliberated before taking Oscar Robertson as his fourth choice.
As for who is fifth, the 29-year-old James already has built quite the case.
James' growing list of accomplishments include two straight NBA championships, two Finals MVP awards, four MVP awards, seven All-NBA first-team selections and five times on the NBA All-Defensive first team. He's also on his way to his 10th All-Star Game.
Utah coach Tyrone Corbin discussed James' claim before the Jazz played the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday.
"You ask 10 different guys and that list will probably change 10 different times," Corbin said.
Corbin said that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving were the first names that come to mind when considering whom James might have snubbed when naming his top four.
"There's a whole slew of guys that you can throw in the category," Corbin said. "I always thought it was difficult to pick the top five, 10, even 50 guys in this league, man. There's so many different guys that you can throw in there that you're going to leave somebody out at some point."
Information from ESPNLosAngeles.com's Dave McMenamin was used in this report.
