My name is Matt, and until last night at around 8 p.m. PT, I was a LeBron James fan.
It’s probably more accurate, really, to say that I have been a LeBron defender.
The Decision? I said we should give him a break. Was it a tone-deaf moment? Sure, but didn’t it also raise literally millions of dollars for the Boys & Girls Club? I always envisioned a scenario wherein LeBron was sitting on his couch playing some video games, and Maverick Carter walked up behind him and said, “Hey BronBron,” because in my visions Maverick always calls him BronBron, “ESPN is gonna donate 3mil to the Boys & Girls Club in your name if we announce your free agency decision live on television…” Then LeBron – never looking away from his Call of Duty game – says, “Yeah, seems cool,” and literally doesn’t think about it again until he’s sitting on stage talking to Jim Grey. At which point, in my possibly misguided vision, LeBron thinks for the first time, “This might not be a great look…”
Shortly thereafter, when LeBron, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade held a relatively offensive display of hubris at the American Airlines Arena in Miami — “NOT ONE, NOT TWO, NOT THREE, NOT FOUR, NOT FIVE…” — I said, “Well who WOULDN’T be excited!” and moreover, “Maybe they really COULD win 6 or 7 or 8 with that core…”
When LeBron has flopped and whined and politicked his way into beneficial referee treatment, I have said, “Get used to it, folks — this is how the NBA works.” When people said, “He wants to pass, he doesn’t have that killer instinct,” I raved about his determination to make the right basketball play. When tired old critics said it was wrong for him to take two weeks off mid-season to rest his legs, I called them old and told them to shut up.
Perhaps more to the point, though, I have always cherished what LeBron IS, and embraced his true greatness, rather than worry about what he’s not or what he may have done wrong along the way. A physical marvel with a brain for basketball that seems to rival any player in the history of the game. A truly decent person in his interactions with folks — something I have seen firsthand in my capacity as occasional Warriors’ TV stats dude — who goes out of his way to maintain relationships. A funny, engaging person who seems to have success in every arena he steps into.
You might call me naive, but I’m for celebrating greatness while we have it, and that’s always been my approach towards LeBron James.
But that’s over now. I can’t be a LeBron James fan anymore, because self-respect is important to me.
Monday night, LeBron James collided with Draymond Green in the second quarter of a not-so-hotly contested game between the Cavs and Warriors. Here’s the play:
Let’s try to unpack this — Marv Albert, calling the play, says “Looks like a shot to the chest…” Chris Webber, the color analyst and resident former player, says, “I know this for a fact – [Richard] Jefferson is doing what we call fronting… This wasn’t that hard of a foul, it’s not going to end the world…” He goes on to say, “That’s just a regular foul, I don’t care what year it is…” We then get to see replays, which CLEARLY show that LeBron, while he takes a decent shot to the chest, is not touched in the face. At worst, Draymond’s shoulder grazes James’ beard.
He then, as we have come to expect, flails his arms in the air, falls to the ground and puts his head in his arms as if he’s really struggling to process the massive blow he has just been dealt. In fact, one could argue that if anything made contact with LeBron’s face it was his own arm as he flopped dramatically to the floor. When he finally DID find the strength to rise to his feet (courageous warrior that he is) LeBron proceeded to rub his jaw for the next 5 minutes, as if it had been hit.
This is not out of the ordinary, we have come to expect it not only from LeBron but from many of the great players in this league. It’s obnoxious, it’s certainly not ideal, but it happens; and there may be no way to put that genie back in the bottle. We already know flagrant fouls are called on contact that would quite literally have been a “play on” 15 years ago. And we know that players do — and likely will continue to — exaggerate contact in an effort to draw flagrant fouls, because they’re worth it.
Not to mention, you and I know that the foul occurred around 5:45 or 6p PT, and I didn’t stop being a LeBron James fan for about 2 hours after that.
It was LeBron’s fraudulent and embarrassing postgame bitch-fest that lost me.
LeBron James on collision with Draymond Green: I'm alright, I'm a football player pic.twitter.com/AV47493Ln7
— KNBR (@KNBR) January 17, 2017
“I think his shoulder hit me in the face…” Except no, it didn’t. We all saw it NOT hit you in the face about 25 times. Perhaps a beard graze, certainly not a shot to the mouth.
“… but it happened so fast, I didn’t even know who it was…” I can’t prove he knew it was Draymond. I can, however, look at the video of the play and see that he does, clearly, see that SOMEONE is coming, because he raises his arm to brace for a collision. He knew it was coming, unequivocally, and frankly I find it hard to believe that a guy who can literally recall almost every play of his CAREER and where all the players were on the floor would fail to recognize one of his chief rivals just before a collision.
But then we get the coup de grace: “… but I’m alright, I’m a football player.” No, sir, you are most definitely not.
A football player would be embarrassed to flail to the ground and lie with his head in his arms for three minutes after a love tap to the chest. A football player would run THROUGH that contact and continue straight to the rim. A football player would CERTAINLY NOT double down on over-dramatizing contact after the game.
I can’t tell you why this was the final straw for me, except to say that perhaps it is one thing to flop, and to cajole officials into favorable treatment, and even to politick in postgame media sessions in the interest of future favorable treatment. Those may not be the most honorable behaviors, but they are understandable and justifiable. To tout your own toughness and metaphorically bang your chest after doing so (because, apparently, literally banging your chest would cause you great injury) is quite another thing.
Furthermore, LeBron is simply too good for these antics — he is probably the most perfectly naturally-suited basketball athlete in the history of the sport. Nobody has possessed his combination of size, speed, skills and feel for the game. He does himself and the game a discredit when he engages in clownish ref-baiting and he loses all credibility when he attempts to hang a medal of valor on a blatant flop.
I suppose I must concede here that LeBron is still doing pretty well. He’s still the best player in the NBA. He’s still a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, a multiple champion, an athletic marvel and a basketball genius. He’s still as adored, worldwide, as much as probably just about any living human being.
He has one less fan, though, and he didn’t have to.
