LeBron James and the Biggest Posers in NBA History

What is a poser? A poser is a person who acts like he is something he is not. 

An NBA poser can be a player who comes up big in small moments but fails to live up them in the biggest moments. 

An NBA poser is a player that likes to leave you with an impression that he was something that he isn't.

The thing about the biggest NBA posers is you can't be a poser if you weren't special. For instance, Ricky Davis might have been a pretender, but he wasn't a poser. He was just a knucklehead. 

These are real posers. They had, or have, the talent to be great, but came up short of what their talent should have led them to. These are the eight biggest posers in NBA history. 

Dikembe Mutumbo

Dikembe Motumbo was one of the greatest defensive players the game ever saw. However, he never developed the offensive aspect of his game. He could have been one of the greatest players in the history of the game period.

Instead, he settled to be just a great defensive player. He had the size, the speed, the quickness and the athleticism to be a scoring machine, the next Hakeem Olajuwon. However, he never did.

Shawn Kemp

Shawn Kemp could have been a truly great player. For about the first 10 years of his career, he was one of the top 10 players in the NBA.

The Reign Man was a dunk machine. He was Blake Griffin before there was Blake Griffin. 

Then he fell in love with fried food. He got so fat that he was rounder than the ball. The only thing he was dunking was donuts. He went from NBA heavy to just plain heavy. 

The potential Hall of Fame career crashed. What could have been a Hall of Fame career just became a career cut short by food. 

Karl Malone

Karl  "The Mailman" Malone was called The Mailman because he "delivered." He did deliver a lot of points. In all, he delivered 36,829 of them, the second-most in the history of the NBA. 

What he never delivered, though, was an NBA title.

He is the only one of the top 10 scorers in NBA history who never won a ring. That's not so bad.

That doesn't make him a poser. 

What makes him a poser is the pathetic way he went to the Lakers to chase a ring with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. I don't have a problem with players joining with other players to win a ring. I have a problem with aging, great players latching on for a championship ride though. 

Tracy McGrady

Remember when the debate was Tracy McGrady or Kobe Bryant for best player in the NBA? T-Mac was once in the conversation. The big difference between the two of them was work ethic. 

In one of the most pathetic quotes in NBA history, McGrady explains why he didn't practice:

"

The crazy thing about it is… there's a lot of players like that. People are so scared to really voice who they are. They want to be politically correct. Just scared to see what other people's perceptions are… When you have God-given talent, I think that that kind of hinders your practice habits and that's what I think it did to me. Had I not been so talented, I probably would have busted my (butt) in practice.

"

It's the trend. Take any wrong position you want. Put the words "politically correct" around the opposite position, and presto magnifico, you justify your wrong position. 

It is not "politically correct" to think that practicing is a good thing. It's fact. When you look at players like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose or Kevin Durant, they work on their game. 

It is said how much talent went to waste in McGrady, and it's not all because of injuries. Could he have won rings before that if he had worked on his game?

Vince Carter

Vince Carter might be one of the two or three greatest dunkers in the history of the game. He might be the greatest dunker in the history of the game period. 

So let me ask you a question: How does a player with that much athleticism have, at best, a second-tier Hall of Fame career?

I think he'll make it in, but the distance between what Carter could have been and what he was at his best, before any injuries, is sad. He never really improved his game, and he never worked on defense. He never won a championship. 

Had he improved his game, he could have led the Nets to a title. Instead, he wasn't even the best player on the team. 

A man who once jumped over a seven-footer is relegated to mere "top 100" conversation instead of to 10. What makes Carter a poser is the sad gulf between what he was and what he could have been. 

Reggie Miller

Reggie Miller has been called one of the greatest assassins in the history of the game. To watch him celebrate after making a game-winning shot, you would think he never missed one in his career. 

So, when Play Index+ came out with it's shot finder, I thought I'd take a look at his success rate, expecting it to be pretty high. I was shocked at the results. 

Unfortunately, it only goes back to the 2001 season, so it only gets the last five years of his career, but over those seasons, Miller was just 3-of-24 on game-winning shot opportunities. That's a field-goal percentage of .125. 

Miller might have had some huge clutch moments where he came through, but he had many a game where he didn't come through as well. 

The word your looking for is either "wow!" or "poser!"

Charles Barkley

Chuck be so sexy. 

The man who once spat on a little girl in the stands and declared he wasn't a role model called LeBron James' celebration with his Miami teammates a "punk move." 

I wasn't a big fan of the smoke-machine celebration, but if you were to ask me which was more of a "punk move," having fun with your new teammates and enjoying a moment with your fans or spitting on a little girl, it's not hard to get the difference. 

Charles Barkley the analyst would have torched Charles Barkley the player again and again. He has this notorious habit of pretending like that Charles didn't exist. 

I get that now Barkley is older, wiser and more mature. The problem is that he doesn't treat today's players with the way that he asked to be treated when he was playing. 

LeBron James

No one denies that LeBron James is an outstanding talent. He is one of the most talented players in the history of the game. 

I don't have a problem with him signing with the Heat to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. I get that it's more about the three playing together than LeBron taking the easy way out to go ride the coattails of Wade. 

Heck, I don't even have a problem with The Decision.  I think the reason James wants people to like him is that he's a genuinely nice guy. I think he actually cares about kids, and he's proven that with both his time and his own money. Anyone that inks a million dollar check for charity has my respect in that regard, and I'm not going to question a charity event he hosts. 

What makes LeBron James a poser is the way he adheres to the moniker "King." 

There's one thing that James could do to get people to forgive him: Come out and say, "Don't call me King until I get a ring. I'm just a prince right now. Heck, until I play big in the fourth quarter of the finals, I'm just a pauper."

It's hard to display humility while you're tagging yourself with a title you haven't earned. If other people give it to him, it's not his fault, but if he embraces it, it is. That makes him a poser.