LeBron James Whining Because Not Everyone Likes Him

Added on Oct 21, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

The transformation of LeBron James from one of the most beloved players in the NBA to the sport’s biggest ‘heel’ has been amazing both in its completeness and suddenness. He’s gone from being an example of how a kid can jump from high school to the NBA and remain grounded while becoming a great ball player to a walking definition of how the hubris of professional athletes can run amok.

I used to be a big LeBron fan. I’m a West Coast guy with loyalties split between the Utah Jazz and Portland Trailblazers, but I always pulled for LeBron’s Cavs to come out of the East. Now he’s right there with Brett Favre in a competition for the athlete I loathe the most. I’ve always *hated* the Boston Celtics, but I’m actually hoping they eliminate LeBron’s Heat. Actually, I’d rather see a barrage of Kobe Bryant daggers raining down on LeBron, Bosh and Wade during the NBA Finals.

ESPN’s role in LeBron’s transformation has been crucial, but it’s still hard to figure out whether they’re huge marks for him or whether they’re trying to do everything in their power to *make* him the most reviled athlete in sports. As much as I like the idea that ESPN is conspiring to make him the target for every other team in the league and their fans, I’m afraid they take themselves way too seriously for that. They legitimately think they’re bigger than the sports they cover–that they and their unctuous personalities are ‘the show’. Still, it’s amazing that no one at ‘The Worldwide Leader’ gave LeBron and his ‘handlers’ counsel that a big TV event to announce his free agency plans was a good PR move. Obviously they cashed in on the highly rated event (even if the ad money *did* go to charity the publicity alone was worth millions) but you’d think that someone there knew it was a train wreck waiting to happen. Then again, they act like the only reason that people go to their website is to read the miserable rantings of Rick Riley and Bill Simmons.

Ever since the debacle that was ‘The Decision’, ESPN has been hard at work trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube and demonstrate that LeBron really is a great guy. They’ve also done everything possible to help further LeBron’s wack-a-doodle theory that all of the negativity toward him is based in racial hatred. ESPN has hit a new low in their LeBron shilling with a breathless report about how he’s been subjected to ‘hateful Tweets’:

“LeBron James started his own Twitter account in July because he wanted to be more in touch with fans and, as it has turned out, his non-fans.

To illustrate that sometimes unpleasant interaction, James took the unusual step of retweeting some hateful Twitter messages to his 900,000 followers on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, the Miami Heat star said he did it to show people what he deals with on a daily basis.”

The Tweets in question definitely qualify as hateful and certainly weren’t written by Mensa members:

“I just want you guys to see it also,” James said after the Heat’s practice Wednesday afternoon. “To see what type of words that are said toward me and towards us as professional athletes. Everybody thinks it is a bed of roses and it’s not.”

In one message a person wrote that James is “a big nosed big lipped bug eyed (racial slur). Ur greedy, u try to hide ur ghettoness.”

Even the ones that weren’t racial in nature weren’t very nice:

“In another message James made public he was called a “fraud” and a “bitch” and in another tweet the writer wrote “why don’t u speak by laying ur head under a moving car.”

We’ll give LeBron the benefit of the doubt and assume for our purposes that he actually *does* his own Twitter-ing. That would put him in the minority among high level superstars despite some high profile exceptions like Chad Ochocinco. Keep in mind that this is a guy who rolls with an entourage that rivals MC Hammer’s in his prime. When C-list celebrities and journeyman MMA fighters outsource their Twitter efforts to assistants or ‘social networking consultants’ the chance that any major celebrity is doing his own updates is slim. But even if LeBron is doing his own Tweeting, the ongoing effort by ESPN to put him in the same conversation with Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron and Rosa Parks is laughable.

There’s no question that even in 2010 with a black President in the White House there are still backwards hillbillies who don’t like black people. People have been hating other people based on superficial characteristics–race, religion, income, sexual preference, nationality, etc.–since the beginning of time. ’Big picture’ things are better now, but the huge transformation brought about by technology and the Internet hasn’t just benefited people with noble motives. It’s also allowed marginalized and hateful people–even those with downright insane beliefs–to aggregate with others that share their thoughts and ideals. Plus, a little bit of hatred is the nature of the beast on Twitter. Anyone with more than a couple dozen followers has likely had some hateful comments directed their way–I know I have, as have most of my friends and associates.

Maybe LeBron actually believes that the backlash directed at him is racially motivated. But the type of backwards imbeciles that hate people based on the color of their skin DON’T WATCH THE NBA! It’s not exactly popular with the racist demographic which is why early this year some moron tried to start a ‘whites only’ pro basketball league. Not surprisingly, it was met with hoots of derision even from the cities in the deep south the founder hoped would embrace his ‘vision’. So while there may be people that hate LeBron based on race, they hate every other African American for the same reason.

For one thing, sports fans are always predisposed to hate any team that can be perceived as trying to ‘buy a championship’. That’s why there are so many New York Yankees haters out there. Sports fans also hate players that put themselves before the team. Obviously, there’s no shortage of superstars that have and will do this–Michael Jordan was supposedly the de facto GM during his championship years in Chicago–but the collective sports fanbase doesn’t like athletes that don’t have enough self awareness to understand how this looks. In this regard, he’s put himself in the same boat as Brett Favre–and you won’t find many ‘whiter’ athletes than Favre. Even before the recent ‘penis n Crocs’ picture controversy, he was hated by a good portion of the fanbase outside of Minnesota. His original ‘un-retirement’ was bad enough, but the annual charade since–particularly this past summer where Brad Childress had to fly down to Mississippi and beg–has been even more unseemly. And Favre never commandeered an hour of prime time network TV to announce his decision.

Ultimately, there may be a minuscule fraction of the ‘anti-LeBron’ demographic that hates him based on the color of his skin. But these people didn’t like him *before* he headed to South Florida. The majority of his former fans have changed their tune about LeBron due to his profound lack of self awareness in realizing that few outside of his entourage think he’s the center of the universe.