LeBron James Making Change ‘Out Of Respect’ For Celtics Legend

The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have a long and storied rivalry that stretches back decades.

The two franchises have matched up a total of 372 times to date, with the Celtics holding a 208-164 advantage in the regular season and a 9-3 advantage in NBA Finals matchups. The short of it is, they don’t like each other very much, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be some respect.

In fact, a current Laker decided to show some respect Saturday night.

Lakers forward LeBron James will change his uniform number from No. 6 back to No. 23 for the upcoming season, James’ agent Rich Paul announced to ESPN.

“It’s LeBron’s decision,” Paul said, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “He chose to out of respect for Bill Russell.”

Russell died at the age of 88 last year, prompting the NBA to retire the No. 6 league-wide, marking the first time a player was honored in such a fashion. Those who wore No. 6 at the time of the announcement were grandfathered in and could keep the number should they so choose.

The timing of the league’s announcement made it so James couldn’t switch his uniform number, as the league wouldn’t have enough time to restock new uniforms prior to the start of the season.

Thus the change prior to James’ 21st NBA season, which was obviously always going to happen.