Last
night, after Cleveland’s loss to the middling Dallas Mavericks, LeBron James went on a
no holds barred tirade against TNT’s Charles Barkley, in response to recent
criticism Sir Charles had leveled against him. Barkley had criticized James last week for complaining publicly about not having enough help on his Cavaliers’
roster, characterizing his outburst as, “Inappropriate. Whiny. All of the above.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, they have given him everything he wanted. They have
the highest payroll in NBA history. He wanted J.R. Smith last summer, they paid
him. He wanted [Iman] Shumpert last summer. They brought in Kyle Korver. He’s
the best player in the world. Does he want all of the good players? He don’t
want to compete? He is an amazing player. They’re the defending champs”.
Seems
like a reasonable thing to say, right? Plus, it's not like Barkley was the only
media personality to call out LeBron for those statements. Of course, to hear James tell it, you would've thought Chuck made a pass at his wife, considering the amount of venom he had saved up for him.
Here's some of the highlights of LeBron's statement (in bold), with my commentary below.
“He’s a hater. What makes what he
says credible? Because he’s on TV?”
Hey,
LeBron, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but Barkley, as a television
analyst, is literally paid to give his opinion. Like that’s the entire purpose
of him being on the TNT set. He’s a provocateur and a loud mouth with some of the
strongest opinions in sports, and it’s made him one of the most popular and
highly paid people in all of media. As a studio guy, a network literally couldn’t
ask for more than what Barkley gives them.
Here’s
the amazing thing about Barkley’s opinions though; if you disagree, who cares?
Great! Awesome! You’re allowed too! I certainly know I don’t always, or even a
majority of the time, agree with what Charles has to say, but who cares? The man
is just doing his job! And you’re LeBron, the best player in the world! Why do
you care about what some retired , 50+ year old guy says about you? And where’s
your vitriol for Skip Bayless, an actual troll who has said way worse things about
you than anyone? I know Barkley is now on the "LeBron won't ever be one of the five greatest players of all time" bandwagon now, but I remember the time a few years ago when he was interviewing President Obama during All-Star Weekend that he actually thought James had a chance to pass Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time. Which proves the point that Barkley is just running his mouth and saying a lot of crazy things, hoping something sticks, like a lot of people in the media.
“I’m not going to let him disrespect
my legacy like that. I’m not the one who threw somebody through a window. I
never spit on a kid. I never had unpaid debt in Las Vegas. I never said, ‘I’m
not a role model’. I never showed up to All-Star Weekend on Sunday because I
was in Vegas all weekend partying. All I’ve done for my entire career is
represent the NBA the right way. Fourteen years, never got in trouble.
Respected the game. Print that.”
So
wait a second…. why is it a problem for Barkley to say he’s not a role model?
Aren’t you actually making Barkley’s case for not being one, considering all of the questionable things he’s
done? If anything, I think we all agreed, “Yeah, there’s no one I’d rather go
to Vegas with than Barkley, but he’s not exactly someone I want my children
modeling their behavior after”. And that’s fine! Why does he have to be? There’s
pretty good evidence to suggest that we shouldn’t be encouraging our children
to idolize any athletes, considering a lot of them have massive ego and
personality problems.
And
for all this talk about LeBron being this great role model, I know I certainly
wouldn’t want my kids (if I had any) following his lead. Sure, he’s done great
things for the Akron community, and no one can take that away from him, but he’s
also a child star that’s been in one of the brightest spotlights imaginable for almost two
decades, which may explain some of the more questionable, borderline
ego-maniacal moves he's made throughout his career.
Let’s
be honest about LeBron for a second; he’s the perfect culmination of all the negative
stereotypes about millennials. I seriously can’t remember another athlete
whining as much and with as much frequency as LBJ. It seems like every week
that there’s a new self-serving, attention grabbing whine from LeBron. “We need a
f-ing playmaker”, “Charles Barkley is mean to me”, “Draymond Green called me a
bitch”…. dude, just shut up and play basketball.
Plus,
the dude’s ego is insane, and we don’t have to go anywhere further than “The
Decision” television special to see that. Did we really need a whole
self-serving television hour, in which he did a Bachelor-esque “Final Rose” type
setup with multiple NBA cities? I didn’t even really like his Sports
Illustrated love letter during the summer of 2014 that revealed he was going back to Cleveland either. What’s the problem with having the team announce that they’d signed you
to a contract? And if you want to follow it up with a Tweet, go right ahead,
but why do all of your decisions need to be attention grabbing events?
And of course, there's the flopping issue. Considering his size and stature, there's not a more egregious violator of this than him. The dude literally looked like Draymond Green cracked him in the face with a baseball bat a few weeks ago when in reality, he gave him nothing
more than a hard bump. And then there was the, “Phil Jackson used the word ‘posse’
to describe my business partners, and so I’m going to act like this is the
biggest damn deal in the world and subtlety suggest racism”, as well as the
Sports Illustrated Cover where he wore the safety pin, in support of those who
were triggered by Donald Trump’s election. Yeah, Jackson is definitely a
racist, and we should all completely ignore that fact that he spent almost his entire life either playing with or
coaching African-Americans. Makes total sense. Of course, we shouldn't really be surprised by this, considering accusing people of
racism without any evidence is basically the most stereotypical millennial thing possible. And if you
were triggered by fair, democratic elections, or are sympathetic to those who
were, then you’re probably an idiot. I didn’t vote for Trump in the primaries,
and he didn’t earn my vote in the general election either, but his victory didn’t cause me to lose my
mind, block streets, destroy private property, or threaten to blow up the White House.
And I certainly wasn’t sympathetic to those who did any of those things.
Congratulations
for not getting in trouble though, LeBron. Way to go buddy! Do you want a medal
for not being a criminal? Isn’t staying away from illegal activities exactly
what you’re supposed to be doing?
Also,
it struck me as odd as to why LeBron would go after Barkley so personally. Like
if you don’t like his criticism, whatever, but if you’re going to respond, why
make so much of the tirade about non-basketball related issues? Again, Barkley has never paraded himself as a role model, obviously. Plus, the closest
Chuck ever came to attacking LBJ personally was when he described “The Decision”
as a “punk move”, but even that was related to an element of his life that would affect his
basketball career, the very thing Barkley is paid to talk about.
And finally, why would Barkley give a crap at all about what LeBron has to say about him? He’s already a
millionaire, and this beef with King James only raises his profile because it gets people talking about him. It also helps to promote TNT’s Inside the NBA, because it
demonstrates just how much influence that show has on the day-to-day
conversation in the Association. Provoking the league’s biggest star to trash you
publicly? How many other media entities employ an on-air talent that could
prompt one of the biggest stars in the world to toss out a tongue-lashing like
that? Not even Skip Bayless has that power.
“And if this makes him want to talk
to me, the schedule’s out there. He knows every road arena I’ll be in. Don’t
just come up to me at All-Star and shake my hand and smile.”
Wait,
what? Do you want him to talk to you or not? Because didn’t you just contradict
yourself in the span of three sentences? You invited him to look at the
schedule if he wanted to talk, but then you said you didn’t want him to come up
to you at the All-Star game and shake your hand and have a conversation. So
what do you want exactly?
“Screw Charles Barkley… I’m tired of
biting my tongue. There’s a new sheriff in town.”
Yeah…
that literally made me laugh out loud when I read it. Yes, LeBron James, the
whiny, floppy dude who was triggered by the democratic election process, is now
suddenly about to go Steven Seagal on everyone! Dang dude, he’s such a badass!
One
more thing: the Jordan comparisons have followed LeBron since he entered the
league, and I think it’s at least fair to look at how MJ responded to criticism from the media against him. While it’s true that today’s media is
definitely tougher than it was 25 years ago, Jordan was the primary subject of
a rather unflattering book by Sam Smith called, “The Jordan Rules: The Inside
Story of a Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls”,
released in, ironically, January, during the 1992 season. The book alleged all of the less than stellar things we know about Jordan today, like, “He was a pompous jerk who
belittled and challenged his teammates like he was the biggest bully in the
schoolyard” and, “Jordan punched teammates” and, “MJ once orchestrated a prison-style
stabbing of Craig Hodges in the shower after a bad game” (just kidding about
that last one… probably). Jordan’s response to the book was about as un-LeBron-like as
possible, as he told the media, “I’m going to laugh at it and keep moving. We
as a team know what the truths are”. It would’ve been so easy for LBJ to say something like that. So easy. Again, why do you care what Barkley thinks of you? Or, hell, why
even say anything? Why not just let your play do the talking? How many times did
opposing players or coaches go to the media and trash Jordan, only to have him
tear their hearts out? When the media pushed the “Jordan or Clyde Drexler?”
narrative before the ’92 Finals, MJ responded by dropping 35 first half points in
Game 1. When the New York Times ran a story that Michael was out until 2:30 in
the morning gambling in Atlantic City between Games 1 and 2 of the ’93 Eastern
Conference Finals against the Knicks, he responded by slapping up a triple
double in Game 3, and dropping 54 points in Game 4. In ’96, right before his
team played the Bulls, former UNC guard Jerry Stackhouse told the press that he used
to dominate Jordan one-on-one scrimmages during summer camps at North Carolina. His
Airness, in response, absolutely destroyed him by scoring 48 points in three
quarters, while holding Stackhouse to a meager 13 points on 4-11 shooting. When Jeff Van Gundy
referred to Jordan as a “con man” before their 1997 meeting, Mike killed his
Knicks’ team, finishing with 51 points. We could go on for days with, “Jordan
silenced his critics” stories, but the point remains the same; Jordan didn’t
get worked up by the critiques of his inferiors, while LeBron is triggered by
them.
But
yeah, , LeBron's "well on his way" to being the greatest of all time… right...
