Liam Day explains why so many NBA fans just can’t help but hate the Miami Heat’s superstar.
LeBron James has done it again. For the second year in a row his Miami Heat are NBA Champions. And he has a message for all the fans out there who were rooting against him.
Part of the enmity directed at LeBron stems from how good he is. When you are the best, few people are neutral about you. They either love you or hate you. One only has to ask a member of the New York Yankees over the last 15 years or so what that feels like.
And because he is so good, LeBron has become a poster child for the NBA and everything, good and bad, it stands for. This only fuels the anger some fans feel toward him.
Part of the enmity also derives from the way LeBron left Cleveland for Miami. The Decision, televised live on ESPN, left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths. I understand that. However, as I pointed out in a piece about LeBron at the beginning of the NBA season, we need to differentiate between how LeBron went about exercising his free agency and that he did. He was well within his rights to sign with Miami and no one should hate him for that reason alone.
Still, as much as anything else, the reason some fans hate LeBron, if hate is not too strong a word, is the following quote, which he gave after losing in the NBA Finals two years ago to the Dallas Mavericks. You see, this isn’t the first time LeBron has had a message for his haters.
“All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. So they can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they got to get back to the real world at some point.”
Some fans have interpreted this quote to mean some version of, “I’m a multimillionaire and all you losers out there who aren’t can go suck it.”
Again, I get that. It is a perfectly reasonable interpretation. I would argue, however, that LeBron wasn’t talking financially, but existentially. He was referring to the escapism sports provide fans. Yes, we get a high when the team we root for wins or the team we root against loses, but, eventually, we’ve got to come down. Life goes on whether or not the Miami Heat win.
I would also argue how you choose to interpret LeBron’s quote will depend entirely on your bias either toward or against him, and further argue that your bias may derive in some way from a racialized view of basketball. As Yago Colas pointed out in his piece last week on Manu Ginobili, the NBA’s fans are predominantly white, but it’s players mostly black. As a result, many white basketball fans have long clung to the myth of a pure team game long ago corrupted by a focus on individual play, what might be called the street game. Even the language we use to describe basketball is rife with street slang. He’s got game; he’s got hops; he ripped him.
To many fans, this is what the NBA has come to represent and every time a kid like Nerlens Noel, the likely first pick in this year’s draft, pulls a one year and done in college, it reinforces in their minds the belief that, though bigger and stronger and faster, the players in today’s league don’t play the game as well as the greats of old. They haven’t invested the time to fully develop their skills, they haven’t learned how to function within a set offense, to function as part of a team.
To refute that point would require more than a blog post. Suffice it to say, though, that I don’t believe it’s true. Ironically, it is the very person who has come to be David Stern’s poster child, and thus the focus of the fan’s ire, who embodies it least. For one thing that LeBron does exceedingly well on a basketball floor is pass the rock.
So, when Lebron sends a message to all the haters out there, I’m sympathetic. He doesn’t deserve their ire. He is a great player who is a great teammate. Still, I wish he would ignore all the crap and take advice from Key from Hustle & Flow:
“There are two types of people: those that talk the talk and those that walk the walk. People who walk the walk sometimes talk the talk but most times they don’t talk at all, ’cause they walkin’.”
Let the haters hate, LeBron. All you need to do is keep walkin’.
Personally I think Lebron has figured out that he needs some external motivation at times. While else would he say some of the things he says. He’s a smart guy. He knows what response he’s going to get.
Enjoyed the read. I’m a diehard Knicks fan since ’92 and we’ve shared some bitter rivalries with Miami during the course. But it doesn’t keep me from giving LeBron his proper respect. Miami Heat are the best team in basketball, due in large part to LeBron who is by far the best overall player in the league. If anyone denies these facts, then they are absolutely hating on the success of LeBron James.
liam I have coached NBA Rookie of the year,Damian lillard and Jabari Brown at Missouri and Langston Morris Walker at Oregon State and have helped countless kids get scholarships. I am watching Open Court and I gotta say that ,increasingly, I am having a difficult time appreciating the struggles of folks like Lebron James. I am sitting here watching Open Court, listening to players complain about how often they get asked for money. Damn, really? How come one never or seldom here’s them complain about how much free stuff they get? The Heat received $100,000 in free champagne for their… Read more »
I can’t relate either, og. I respect the hell out of Damian Lillard though. I guarantee he wasn’t cruising the Weber State campus or the potholed roads of Ogden in a tricked out Hummer after practice. It’s hard not to see the parallels between the unacknowledged privilege and historical ignorance of LBJ and Ivy League feminist bloggers. Not too long ago, a good number of brave people bled and died so this generation doesn’t have to. A homeless man asks for change? If I have a dollar and payday is near, I damn well hand it over and he damn… Read more »
Yo what’s up Ben? I coached Dame for two years, along with the staff at Oakland high and in concert with his AAU staff. That’s at least six adult men who provided him with the training and support he needed to shine like the emerging star he was. I believe that because he wasn’t a big star from the cradle it provided him with motivation he needed to grow into what he has become today. Dame is a good kid, who I hope retains the humility that has always been a part of his character. if he keeps the same… Read more »
Just trying to stay cool in the Az heat right now, og. It’s great to hear that about Damion. I also want you to know this here is one man who knows just how important the work you do with those kids is to their lives–not just now, but 30 or 40 years from now when they’ll be living with decisions from today. I teach at the U of A here in Tucson and have had a handful of pro athletes come through my writing classroom, most recently Alex Mejia, the Pac 12 baseball POY from the 2012 national title… Read more »