LeBron James, King James, Uncle Bron, the chosen one, Ironman. It’s taken me a long time to appreciate the man and the player for who he really is.
If you knoew me, you know that I havan’t always been a fan. I’ve campaigned hard against him, especially when it came to the never ending Kobe vs LeBron or Jordan vs LeBron debates.
I’ve often thought about why exactly I wasn’t a fan of him, and for the longest time I couldn’t come up with a reasonable answer.
A few days ago against the San Antonio Spurs, he went up for a pull up mid-range jumper at the top of the key and hit nothing but net. With those two points he joined the super exclusive 30,000 point club.
Of all the players that graced the courts of the NBA’s seventy-two year history, only seven players have achieved that feat. That goes to show you. IT was quite the achievement, and even though he was in an opposing team’s arena, he was celebrated by everybody.
Truthfully speaking LeBron is a complete basketball player. Some players are very good at a few facets of the game, while lacking in other areas. But LeBron is solid in every department (size, athleticism, scoring, rebounding, defending etc). He may not be the best at some things (shooting for example, that honour goes to Steph Curry. Or defending, which Kawhi Leonard has on lock), but he’s definitely great at all of them.
I only recently put my finger on why I was never a fan of him from the beginning: It’s because LeBron’s MO is passive-aggression. What I mean by that is over the years he’s done a variation of the following: He’ll subliminally refer to something publicly, usually through social media, but when asked to clarify, he’ll pretend nothing happened, and that he didn’t say what we think he said.
He’s taken subtle shots at teammates on Twitter, only to be even more cryptic when the media questioned him about it. He’s never participated in the All Star Game dunk contest, and has said that it wasn’t in his plans. Then a few years ago, days before the main event, a video of him putting on a dunking clinic during practice popped up online. You see what I’m getting at?
It’s like common ‘Bron, you said you weren’t participating, what’s with the attention seeking? And there was my problem with him. Seeking attention, but pretending not to seek, wanting to make it about him all the time.
I come from the school of overt, blatant and direct statements. That’s Jordan and Kobe school of thought, and that’s why I love both players. That’s also why Tupac is my favourite rapper.
Kobe and Jordan didn’t mince words or pull any punches when they had to address something or someone. They just came out and said straight up. I admire that. Don’t beat around the bush, just come out and say it, then move out of the way and life goes on.
Then I also realized something: Kobe and Jordan don’t define what EVERY player in the NBA should be like. People are allowed to be who they damn well want to be. That’s the mistake a lot of us fans were making: We naively and stupidly thought that if a player didn’t subscribe to the Kobe and Jordan mentality, they weren’t worthy of consideration. How arrogant is that? As much as I love me some Black Mamba and Air Jordan, they don’t set the standard of how people should behave in the National Basketball Association.
I remember in 2016 when LeBron and the Cavaliers came down from a 3-1 game deficit to win the NBA finals. I remember how hurt, depressed, angry, distant and quiet I was for the next few days. Ask my Mum, she’ll tell you. Because I’m also very honest with myself, I remember thinking “That’s a really dark, ugly, s****y way to feel about someone or someone’s success bro.” From that day on I decided to work on myself to become better. I didn’t like the fact that a person could have so much pull on me and make me have such negative emotions.
LeBron has achieved greatness his own way. He’s been labelled an unselfish player his whole career, yet his points per game average is actually better than Kobe, a natural scorer. How he’s been able to pull that off only he knows. I really think of him like Lionel Messi: He was truly born to do what he does, he’s the only person I think of in those terms when it comes to basketball. Though he works like a beast, from high school to now, it’s like inspiration and spectacular play comes to him naturally, smoothly, without trying. With other players I can tell it’s hard work, with him it’s different, it’s like it’s from within. Google his statistics, or YouTube his highlights and see for yourself.
Just because he’s not who we want him to be doesn’t take away from his greatness. That’s the problem with being famous, everybody thinks they know you and have a say in who you are and what you should do. I once said this on a YouTube video: “Everybody always wants you to be who THEY are comfortable with,” without realizing it applied to me to. It took me a while to catch that.
What LeBron does and who he is of no concern to us. Because he’s been nothing but a model citizen in every sense of the word: role model, social activist, ambassador for black excellence and a lot more. You’ve never heard him involved in a scandal off the court. He’s handled stardom the right way and overachieved his potential. Don’t get mad get even.
People are allowed to be different, contradictory. They are allowed to change as much as they want to. There are different types of LeBron that I happen to like too: petty LeBron, cool-killer mentality LeBron, vicious LeBron (though I do think he was out of bounds on this one). You are appreciated, Lebron James, in all versions.