LeBron James' Response to Larry Bird Is More Media Smear

LeBron James dared to defend himself to the media. LeBron versus the media in a publicity battle is something like LeBron James versus Tony Kornheiser in a game of one-on-one. It's just horribly one-sided and unfair. 

The media controls the message, when it's said, and any response that LeBron James gives can also be manipulated. The latest example comes in the way he "responded" to Larry Bird's comments about Kobe Bryant and him. 

Recently, James has been discussed playing the "victim card." Here is one of somewhere around 253,318 examples from the Huffington Post.

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"I'm an easy target," James lamented on Wednesday after the Miami Heat's loss to the Orlando Magic. "If someone wants to get a point across, just throw LeBron's name in there. You could be watching cartoons with your kids and you don't like it, you say, 'Blame it on LeBron.'" 

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The first part of the problem is that the question being answered is portrayed as being an answer to the Kendrick Perkins comments.  

His response to the Larry Bird comment would be best paraphrased as "Of course I understand why Larry Bird would rather play with Kobe Bryant, he has five rings and I don't have any." 

Why is that obvious? Because Larry Bird isn't blaming anything on LeBron James.

There are going to be some who are so fixated on looking for another excuse to hate on James that they're going to fixate on timing of the question and ignore the fact that interviews don't work like a carefully choreographed play, where every response is written and memorized in advance.

This is more of a situation where he had not yet completed his original thought. Someone interjected a question in the middle of his answering it. He answered that question then picked up his previous train of thought where he'd left off. 

He's hardly defending himself form Larry Bird's comments. He's doing the opposite, he's agreeing with Larry Bird's comments. 

He then moves past those comments and returns to the Kendrick Perkins question. 

The problem here is in the editorial comment innocuously interjected which suggest how James is responding to the question, rather than what he is saying. It's an inaccurate portrayal of James' tone to suggest he is "lamenting." 

"Lament" is defined by the dictionary as "A passionate expression of grief." If you watch the video, though, it's pretty clear that there is no "passionate expression of grief" involved here.

Substitute the word "joked" for "lamented" and it changes the entire way the comment comes across, but it is actually the accurate way of describing it. 

Many from the media have tried to paint this as "James trying to make everything about him" as numerous talking heads on ESPN have argued. However, James was answering a question about himself. How exactly is he supposed to do that without talking about himself?

There's also the basic reality that James is right. The dunk that Blake Griffin made on Kendrick Perkins was universally hailed as one of the greatest dunks ever. James makes an innocent and humble comment about it being a great dunk, and everyone jumps on him, and only him, for it. 

Not one other person was criticized for praising the dunk. Only LeBron James is not allowed to do it. He gets critiqued for how he compliments people. 

Who is really "making it about LeBron" here, the media or LeBron James? He simply tweeted; the media has spent four days analyzing the tweet.

Then after they spend days squeezing every article and page view they can get out it, they ask him a question about it and then spend another two days attacking how he answered the question about it.

It's not to say that LeBron James never does anything wrong or he's perfect, but it seems like the media and haters spin it as though he does everything wrong. And if they get called on a silly criticism, they just fall back on "What about 'The Decision'?" as though that one event makes everything he ever says or does wrong. 

Maybe the reality is that LeBron James tweeting a tweet that Blake Griffin made a nice dunk just isn't news. Maybe the whole smear machine is just getting out of hand.

Maybe LeBron James is right and it's just easier to blame everything on LeBron.