For years, LeBron James has largely been put on a pedestal by the media as an athlete who is team-first and humble in the face of his enormous success. I would argue that his tenure so far in the NBA indicates exactly the opposite.
Just this week, David Blatt was fired as the coach of the Cavaliers almost 50 games into the season, when they are first in the Eastern Conference! The second-year coach was handpicked by the team’s owner to join a revamped roster featuring James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
Blatt’s dismissal this deep into a successful season makes no sense unless you consider the LeBron factor. The four-time MVP has a long history of ignoring his coach’s play calls, talking over them during timeouts and even physically belittling them.
Never short on self-promotion, James brushed off assertions that he was involved with Blatt’s dismissal in order to elevate his favorite assistant, Tyronn Lue, to the top spot.
“What do you guys want me to do, turn my brain off because I have a huge basketball I.Q.?” James asked. “If that’s what they want me to do, I’m not going to do it because I’ve got so much to give to the game.”
He said this in response to Miami Heat minority owner Ranaan Katz’s claim this week that Blatt’s firing was part of a pattern and that James had pushed for Erik Spoelstra to be fired during his tenure with the Heat.
Some dismissed the criticism from Katz as mere spite for James’s leaving Miami two summers ago, just as he left his hometown of Cleveland for Miami with the shamelessly self-promoting “The Decision” ESPN special.
Does the greatest basketball player of the 21st century so far deserve to pat himself on the back every once in awhile? Certainly. James has earned the right to be cocky, just like his predecessor, Michael Jordan.
What I take issue with is the way LeBron expresses that cockiness: manipulating front office decisions (see Blatt, Mike Brown, Paul Silas), belittling teammates as he famously did to Kevin Love on his Instagram page and in the press last year and failing to run back on defense after his missed shots and turnovers that he felt merited foul calls. M.J. would have vented that cockiness and will to win with trash talk of the other team rather than underhanded, passive-aggressive cheap shots as LeBron operates.
You might be right to dismiss me as a salty Chicago fan who has had to deal with LeBron knocking my beloved Bulls out of the conference finals seemingly every year, but I urge you to sit down and watch a few of LeBron’s games in their entirety.
His attitude and dismissiveness of his teammates, refs and coaches are just terrible examples for the best player on Earth to be setting and perhaps reasons why he only has two NBA Finals rings despite surrounding himself with a star-studded cast for years now.
LeBron’s charitable endeavors, especially his commitment to pay millions of dollars worth of tuition for poor Akron kids, are admirable but his conduct on the court and in the locker room are not.
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