a thought on lebron

 Someone on espn made this comparison to when Peyton Manning was at the top of his game and hadn’t won a title.  He was getting critized like all hell and then when he won one he’s the undisputed best player in the league. Lebron’s gotta win a title to get the media off his back, it’s part of the media over analyzing things and trying to make stories and it’s partially Lebron’s fault for "The Decision" and the Backstreet Boy like concert the Heat put on when they were talking about winning 7 titles.  I agree, it annoys the hell out of me too, but I have no doubts as to why it’s happening.

 He hasn’t handled the fallout well either. I don’t know if he was expecting for everyone to still love him, but he doesn’t know how to play the roll. He may just end up being the Barry Bonds of basketball, meaning he’ll be a great record breaking player who everyone thinks is a d!ck.

 As a kobe fan i understand what lebron is going through. kobe has gone through numerous amounts of "hating". Even jordan has his haters but its whatever at the end of the day your success is usually build off how much haters you can have. People don’t believe in perfection and when they see someone close to it they have to scrutinize em. 

I remember when Kobe was the most hated player. (I was one of those haters). I laughed at the time when they lost, had another early exit out of the playoffs and just kept saying how trash Kobe was. But eventually…he used all that criticism from people all across the board and turned it into fuel during his dominating Laker run. I am impressed and feel like a jack ass saying for all those years how he was overrated. Maybe Lebron just has to go through the same thing. His story may be different, but the song is same. Lebron will just have to continue to play his game and when that championship comes along, everyone will soon forget about the decision, and it will be a thing of the past.

Remember, people love to hate. Basketball needs a villain and a hero. Its changed over the years. Celtics were the team everyone’s hated up till now, and now its the Heat. Guess its safe to say the leagues new hero is D-rose.

I personally hate Lebron. Though I also get annoyed when people criticize things that arent right. I agree the whole passing the ball to an open teammate is a stupid thing to criticize. I also absolutely hate when the media demeans how good he is because he doesnt have a Championship yet. Its complete bogus. Karl Malone, John Stockton, Jason Kidd, all great players who never won a ring. Championships do not define who you are as an individual player and there is no doubt that Lebron is a top 3 at the very worst caliber player in the league.

I myself hate him for a couple reasons.

1. as good as he is, his style of play makes him very hard to build around. He is so ball dominant, it isnt even funny. He litterally is clueless without the rock in his hands. I think that is why Cleveland never really was able to win more than alot of regular season games but never make a legit run in the postseason aside from the year they lost to the spurs.

2.While he is a fantastic offensive player, his defensive abilities are vastly overrated. He is no slouch, but a couple of steals and a block in transition doesnt make you an All NBA defender. The blocks are cool, but it doesnt make you a good defensive player. That is the one area where I dont understand the love fest he gets.

3. The way he has the NBA in the palm of his hand. I get it, hes good. But if the NBA protected Dwight Howard half as much as they do Lebron, Howard would average 30 ppg and undoubtedly have at least 1 MVP, and he would have probably half as many technical fouls. Lebron is protected so much by the league, he travels, he fouls, he complains, and nothing happens because hes lebron. It bothers the heck out of me.

Obviously the Decision thing was poorly handled, and the events that followed created a huge negative buzz. I dare say before that summer, the entire season leading up to that offseason, Lebron seemed to be all about himself, and that bothers me. Hes a fantastic basketball player, and I’m sure alot of his aura comes strictly from the media, but he doesnt help himself out sometimes.

 Very solid points Biggysmalls. I think the only one of those points that could be argued is the first one. Now that he has Wade on his team, I think he is starting to do more backdoor cuts and just moving around and posting up in general because he knows he won’t touch the ball every possession like he did in Cleveland. I think the one thing that really fuels him is the energy he creates from the media. Before he went to Miami, there were so few haters, people were rooting for him, saying yes he IS the "Chosen One" or the second coming of Jordan. He used all these things to give him more confidence which is what I think he is lacking in this season. He hasn’t been clutch much at all this year and I think what it is to blame is just that people love to hate him now. We’ve moved on from saying he is the "Chosen One", to "who does he think he is calling himself the Chosen One." Before we all just wanted him to get a ring, to win, and to stay in Cleveland where he resurrected. But now that he joined forces with some other elite talents and have become one of the best teams in the league, people just want them to get beaten. I remember when the Spurs were having their championship runs I always wanted them to lose, they were so boring to watch. It’s the same case (for me at least) with Miami now. Obviously they’re a lot more flashy than the Spurs team from past years but we all know who will be getting the ball, who is going to be doing the scoring, and who will be taking the big shots. There is no guessing about what their gameplan is and because of that, I can’t manage to watch them play much.

But I think as of now, the biggest reason why people hate him so much is because of how poorly he handled the decision. People are still in shock from it and I’d expect all the people that had jumped on the LBJ band wagon to jump back on in a year or two after he’s made it to the finals.

i loved the bnoat while he was in cleveland and would not have been pissed at all about him leaving if he handled the right way there was no reason too be the bnoat and have the whole decision thing he could have simply handled his business the way a true franchise player does like kevin durant did no hoopla around his reuppin with okc shows the difference between a class act and a glory hog