LeBron Fans Have Got Me Upset!
I’m ticked off! As a sports fan, particularly basketball, it pains me that I cannot fully express my love for the game. I get to watch the most skilled and talented athletes in the world on a nightly basis yet I feel like I am being robbed of the opportunity to truly appreciate their greatness. I blame the fans. Some fan bases are dreadfully unbearable. So much so that they villainize the player/team that they root for. New York Yankees fans fall in this category. Kobe Bryant/Lakers fans fall in this category. New England Patriots fans, my goodness, definitely fit here. Dallas Cowboys fans without question have a permanent seat at this table. But no fan base is as irrational and deluded as the fans of one LeBron Raymone James Sr. LeBron fans are the type of fans that will complain about a team going to 4 straight NBA Finals; will say that team and its best player “ruined the game”, then in the same breath praise LeBron for doing the exact same thing. For Instance, I’ve witnessed many LeBron fans hate on the success of the Golden State Warriors, which is understandable because each of their 3 championships have been at his expense. LeBron fans have told me that the Warriors are wack, KD is wack for joining them, they ruined the league by stacking the deck. I’ve heard them say that the NBA is not interesting anymore we all know who’s going to win, the Warriors need 4 stars to beat LeBron. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Then I see this meme which was brought to my attention by a very good friend of mine, and huge LeBron supporter, who was excited about the possibilty:
Now just a week or so prior to posting this meme he had said the Warriors are wack. I believe this was right after Klay had scored 52 points with 14 threes and we were talking about how good the warriors are. We were saying how they play such a great brand of basketball that as a fan of the game you can’t help but appreciate the way they play. He said no I don’t like them they are wack. I asked why are the Warriors wack? He said because they got KD and pretty much made the league boring, we already know they are going to win, and nobody can beat them. I said you sound a little salty, you sound a little bit like a hater. I said if it was LeBron that teamed up with Steph, Klay, and Draymond you would be singing a different tune. He swore up and down that he wouldn’t rock with LebBron anymore if he did that.
When LeBron was going into free agency last summer and everyone was speculating on where he would go, I wanted him to join the Golden State Warriors! I wanted that to happen for one simple reason; so that I could hear all the excuses and all the fans of LeBron James come to his rescue after berating KD for two years for joining the Warriors. Oh it was bad too. They called KD soft and weak. They called him a woman’s genitalia. Can you imagine them trying to come up with a way to defend their King’s decision to make the exact same move just 2 years later? It would have been magnificent. My friend again solemnly swore that he would not have been a fan of LeBron’s anymore had he made that move because that’s stacking the deck and that’s wack.
So he says all that about how terrible it is to win like that and how the league is wack because the Warriors have an unbeatable team and then I see the above meme and I’m utterly perplexed. Many people see LeBron as the best player in the world, Durant as the second best player in the world, and many have Anthony Davis as the third best player in the world. So you are telling me that you are ok with the top 3 basketball players walking the planet earth teaming up but the Warriors dynasty that was organically built in Oakland is wack? Do you see the hypocrisy? If anything, this is true deck stacking in its purest form. Trying to take all the best players, all the best talent, and put it on one team. In fact, the Warriors came together more organically than any of LeBron’s teams that went to 8 straight NBA Finals. LeBron fans however, try to push this false narrative that everybody is stacking up to beat LeBron.
Lets look at the Landscape of the NBA over the past 20 years so we can get a better idea of how asinine that assertion really is:
There have been 14 different years where a team has been represented in the all-star game by at least 3 players:
Golden State Warriors
2016
2017
2018
***Cleveland Cavaliers***
2017
2018
Atlanta Hawks
2015
***Miami Heat***
2011
2012
2013
2014
Boston Celtics
2008
2009
2010
2011
Orlando Magic
2009
Detroit Pistons
2006
2008
Phoenix Suns
2005
2007
LeBron’s had at least two all star teammates in 6 out of 14 years, that is almost half and by far the most out of any other player linked to this list. Not only does LeBron have the most appearances on this list but his teams have been the most inorganically put together. At least two of the all-stars from each of these teams was originally drafted by that team and with them for the entirety of their career to that point except for the Miami Heat, the Detroit Pistons, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Notice anything interesting about those three teams? LeBron was a member of two of them.
The Pistons, while all of their stars arrived via free agency or trade; none of them were stars before they played together. That is the definition of an organically built basketball team. They grew together and bought into a system and made each other better because they played well as a unit.
The Phoenix Suns already had Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire. They just added Steve Nash.
(Editors note: Nash was actually drafted Phoenix too but had left to play in Dallas and returned to Phoenix for the 04–05 season)
The Orlando Magic drafted Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson the same year. Rashard Lewis was brought in as a free agent.
The Atlanta Hawks drafted Al Horford and Jeff Teague. Kyle Korver and Paul Millsap were brought in via free agency.
The Boston Celtics drafted Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce and were gifted Kevin Garnett because of the friendship between Danny Ainge and Kevin Mchale (the GM of the Timberwolves at the time). Ray Allen was eventually convinced to join them to make a run at the finals.
The Warriors drafted Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green with whom they won their first championship with in 2015. In 2016 they brought in Kevin Durant to make themselves even more formidable.
The Miami Heat drafted Dwayne Wade but both LeBron and Chris Bosh arrived via free agency.
The Cleveland Cavaliers drafted Kyrie Irving and LeBron, but LeBron returned after having left the organization, and they brought in Kevin Love.
The only scenario that could even be considered remotely close to stacking would be the Boston Celtics and there are two things to note there: 1. They came together in 2008 two years before LeBron joined Miami so it’s not possible that they tried to stack in order to beat LeBron when LeBron hadn’t even won anything yet or made any sustained runs to the finals. 2. There was no conspiring together or finagling contracts in order to form a super team on the part of the players.
In actuality, it was LeBron and friends who attempted to stack the deck in response to the Celtics who had been to 2 NBA Finals in three years not the other way around. It was LeBron, Wade, and Bosh who set up their contracts years in advance so that they would all be free agents at the same time and conjured up a plan to possibly play together. (It was actually Carmelo not Bosh that they wanted to form the trio with but he took a five-year extension instead of the three-year deal in the summer of 2006. So you’re talking about an even greater stack. Read about it here.)
But here is the kicker. LeBron then saw that Bosh and Wade were getting older and there was a young budding star back home in Cleveland named Kyrie Irving. He also saw that a young force in Minnesota named Kevin Love was going to be a free agent. So in true LeBron fashion, he bolts the Miami Heat after four years and goes back to Cleveland to try and stack the deck again! Yet, I am still trying to figure out when and where the players in the NBA attempted to execute a plan of stacking teams to beat LeBron. It just simply isn’t true.
Another thing that caught my attention was the debate happening in the comment section of this meme here:
There were actually people bringing up the likes of Luol Deng and Joakim Noah in the same sentence with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. I mean just look at this Bulls roster from the 2010–11 season:
Are you kidding me?
The Bulls had no business being on the same floor with Miami and it showed as they lost the eastern conference finals that year in 5 games. That was ok though because LeBron was on the winning side. When the shoe is on the other foot however, it’s a crime against the basketball Gods that a team be able to have that much talent. These are the same fans that will tell you LeBron went up against a great Dallas Mavericks team in 2011; a team that many people slept on and that was lowkey better than people give them credit for. Yeah, the same Dallas Mavericks team that featured Jason Terry, JASON TERRY, as their second leading scorer. Knock it off!
Why can’t LeBron fans just be fair and impartial? Why can’t we discuss LeBron’s career with more objectivity and less sensitivity. As a fan of the game that would make the experience all the more better for me, and that is the reason why I am upset. Because I have been robbed of the ultimate viewing experience. LeBron James is a great player and generational talent the likes of which we may never see again. I want to truly appreciate his greatness but his fans are so biased they make loving LeBron virtually impossible.
Written by Jerrell Walker
Follow in IG: _keepitrell
