LeBron James: Why King James Wants All Fans To Love Him

All LeBron James needs is love.

Now, I’m sure winning a ring is on the King’s mind, but dare I say that priority has a rival. The Miami Heat narcissist is surviving in the NBA without a championship to his name, and for crying out loud, fans still crown him the league’s best player without one. But when James either receives criticism or doesn’t receive praise, his reactions reveal his lust for adoration.

On Friday, Feb. 10  against the Washington Wizards, LeBron nearly got into a fight with—not Rashard Lewis (ba-dum-ch)—but a fan. Here are a series of tweets from NBC’s Sarah Kodog explaining the altercation:

LeBron foolishly did exactly what the moronic fan wanted him to do: react. For how often he's criticized, James should be well-adapted to putting on the blinders. But, instead of reacting like a superstar and ignoring the fan, LeBron chose to put himself on the same level with the instigator.

What he did is the perfect example of what not to do. This is how an athlete must deal with a pot-stirring fan:

LeBron’s need for fans to love him triggered the foolish reaction. 

Sure, after attacking family, Morris had it coming to him, but it isn’t like Delonte West jokes are a new development. James should be numb to the mockery by now; his Twitter account is bombarded daily with jokes in which he’s the punch line. He just simply can’t handle shouldering the role of a villain and not a hero.

For example, check out his Twitter background:

James ironically made that idolizing image his background shortly after going off on his infamous rant following a 2011 NBA Finals Game 6 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. According to the Associated Press’ Brian Mahoney, LeBron fired back at his haters after a reporter asked him if he was bothered that so many were elated to see him fail saying:

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“Absolutely not, because at the end of the day, all the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today.

"I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point.”

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 …The real world or a world where everyone bows down to the King?

That quote shows just how much James cares about what his fans think. A simple yes or no question turned into a whiny tirade.

LeBron’s hunger for attention is no secret. After Blake Griffin’s posterization of Kendrick Perkins, James tweeted:

Yahoo! Sports’ Marc J. Spears reported that the Oklahoma City Thunder center lashed back after James’ ecstatic response saying:

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“You don’t see Kobe [Bryant] tweeting. You don’t see Michael Jordan tweeting. If you’re an elite player, plays like that don’t excite you. At the end of the day, the guys who are playing for the right reasons who are trying to win championships are not worrying about one play. They also are not tweeting about themselves talking about going down to No. 2. I just feel [James] is always looking for attention and he wants the world to like him.”

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In euphoria, everyone is a LeBron fan, a universal dress code restricts humans to wearing only a James jersey, and wallpaper consists of nothing but posters of No. 6.

LeBron will never be a witness to his perfect planet, but would you really doubt that he’s dreamt about it? The Chosen One desires fan devotion like no other professional athlete, and he isn’t exactly hiding his wish too well.

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.

Follow @TheRealDDaniels