LeBron James: The Ten Most Unfair Criticisms

When Lebron James announced his decision to host "The Decision" a firestorm of criticism was launched that continues still. He has gone from arguably the most popular athlete in the world to arguably the most vilified in just a few short months. 

Looking through this you might think I'm a "James apologist" or something. I'm not. I'm a Bulls fan who was hoping he would come to play in our fair city. Kelly Scaletta thinks that talking about yourself in the third-person is downright egotistical, and Kelly Scaletta is always right. I also think that the Akron-Journal ad was a deliberate slap in the face to Cleveland. I'm not defending everything he's said and done, but there are some criticisms that aren't fair. Here is a look at the ten most unfair criticisms and what makes them unfair.

The Traitor

Not to get too technical here, but in order to be a "traitor" don't you have to have a team?  How can LeBron be both a free agent and a traitor at the same time? The traitor criticism is unfair because it ignores the fact that LeBron finished out his contract, and arguably gave the Cavaliers their best team ever. Once he was done with his contract he was free to sign anywhere he wanted--that's why it's called free agency. 

The Dan Gilbert Experience

The argument is that Dan Gilbert gave LeBron everything he wanted. Obviously he didn't. If he truly had, James wouldn't have gone anywhere. The fact is he may have given him the run of the place, but he didn't give him quality players around him. Antawn Jamison, who was acquired in a mid-season trade, was the second "best" player on the team. Jamison had a 16.7 Player Efficiency Rating (PER) while with the Cavs. Only the 93-94 Houston Rockets, led by Hakeem has ever won an NBA championship with only one player over 18, and that was arguably the weakest year in NBA history. People like to argue that they were still the best team in the regular season, but that's a testament to how good LeBron is, not how good the rest of the team is.  

The Decision

Some, recognizing that you can't really criticize a free agent for signing with a team, argue that, "It's not what he did, it's how he did it." The problem with this claim is that it rings disingenuous. To illustrate this point, let's first change what he did. Assume he said, "I'm staying in Cleveland." Would the criticism abound? I think not.

Now assume that he still said he was going to Miami but changed how he did it. Some like to point to Durant's way of quietly re-signing with Oklahoma but that won't work for several reasons, foremost among them that he wasn't re-signing, he was extending. As a restricted free agent, Durant wasn't going anywhere anyway. Furthermore, that's exactly what LeBron did on his second contract. 

Others like to point to the Jordan "fax" and say he should have done something like that. If he had done so though it would have been too, (pardon the pun) cavalier and would have still been criticized as disrespectful. If he had just had a press conference it wouldn't have just been one network it would have been every network broadcasting it ala "The Apology." However he did it, there would have been criticism.

The "it's how he did it" criticism is unfair because it's untrue. If you change what he did, you remove the criticism. If you change how he did it, nothing changes.  

Former Superstars Speak out

Michael Jordan has said, "There's no way, with hindsight, I would've ever called up Larry [Bird], called up Magic [Johnson] and said, 'Hey, look, let's get together and play on one team. But that's ... things are different. I can't say that's a bad thing. It's an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys." 

Those comments on their own are somewhat innocuous though they've been mutilated to the point of non-recognition by those who want to criticize James and the others. For whatever reason, the "I was trying to beat those guys" part of the quote gets a lot more attention than the "I can't say it's a bad  thing" part of it.

Magic Johnson has said, "We didn't think about it cause that's not what we were about. From college, I was trying to figure out how to beat Larry Bird."

They were trying to beat one another, but they both, through different ways had teammates that helped them do it. On Magic's first championship team they didn't need to go get the last missing piece because he was the last missing piece. He was playing alongside not one, but two hall of famers, one of whom went on to become the Associations' all time leading scorer. 

Michael didn't have to go anywhere, nor did he (as he suggests) make anyone come to him. The next best player was newly enshrined Scotty Pippen, who had a PER of 20.6. After him the Bulls best player was Horace Grant. Both Grant and Pippen were just there because that's where they were drafted, not because they wanted to come to play with Jordan. I'm not suggesting they didn't want to, but I'm just pointing out the facts. Both players had the teams put around them that won, either before they got there or after. And let's not forgot that they were both coached by what many consider to be the two greatest coaches of all time. The bottom line,  their criticism doesn't carry much weight because their situations were completely different.

If you want to look at someone in the same situation look at Clyde Drexler who toiled in a small  town year after year with little help and then finally left to get a ring with Houston and laughs at the comments from Magic and Jordan with the following explanation. 

"Basically what they’ve done is what the Celtics and Lakers have done for years, assemble four or five great players at the same time who can compete in the prime of their careers," Drexler said. "If you look back on that, history will tell you that those are the team that have the most championships.

"I used to tell Magic all the time in the ’80s and ‘90s, when they were 'Showtime,' that if we switch teams, you would see what it’s like over here. I told Bird the same thing. … 

"They had four or five Hall of Famers playing with them at the same time. C’mon. You gotta win when that happens. That’s what Miami has done. There’s nothing new about it."

Why his quote didn't get near the press that the others' did isn't hard to miss. It didn't agree with the notion that they were trying to create, although his perspective is much more akin to LeBron's own. 

Barkley's Comments

Charles Barkley said, "In fairness, if I was 25 I'd try to win it by myself. Not technically by myself, but I would want to be the guy. ... LeBron is never going to be the guy." This has so many problems I don't know where to begin. 

Let's start with the whole parsing of the age thing. He says, "If I was 25" because he knows darned well that when he was 29 he got out of town to go where he "could be the guy" in the Phoenix, but when that didn't work out he said, "If you can't beat 'em join 'em and went to play for Houston, where he never won anything. Simply making it about 25 instead of 29 doesn't make it any less hypocritical though. The fact is that James' played in Cleveland longer than Barkley played in Philadelphia. It's also the case that he actually finished his contract instead of crying his way into a trade. Sorry Chuck, there are times when I've defended you in the past, but I can't do it on this one. 

I also want to point out this "be the guy" thing is overblown. There's not always a guy who's "the" guy. Who was "the guy" on the Celtics team that won recently, KG or Pierce? After all Pierce was the finals MVP wasn't he. Who was "the guy" when Johnson was paired with Kareem? What would Barkley know about those things though. He never won, no matter how many times  he changed teams. 

The King

Among the more bizarre recent claims is the oft repeated claim that he has named himself the claim. It's a charge repeated often enough that it's never actually had to be shown to be true. I've tried to find out the when, where and how of the origination of moniker but I still haven't found the precise origins. As near as I can tell, it was the Akron Beacon Journal that first put the name in print, and it had to do with James playing for a Catholic School, playing on the double meaning of the words which coincide with the King James Bible. I find it hard to criticize James for being dubbed the "King" during his sophomore year of High School, nor do I found it any more arrogant than Chris Paul calling himself "CP3," Howard calling himself "Superman," or Kobe referring to himself as "Black Mamba." The criticism is baseless, selective, and disengenuous. 

The Quitter

Among others, Gilbert accused James of "quitting" on the Cavaliers in numerous games, including Game 6 in the playoffs. This, in spite of the fact that James closed out the series with a triple double, 27 points and 19 rebounds. Sorry, you don't get to say someone quit when they put up stats like that, and don't tell me that stats don't tell the whole story. The bottom line is that rebounds are an effort stat as much as anything. It's amazing how no one talked about how he quit in game six until after the "Decision." A quick look at the clutch stats on 82games.com reveals that James led the NBA in scoring and +/- in clutch time. He led Kobe by a margin of 15 points in clutch time! That's just astounding! He also was 8th in assists and 9th in rebounds. Those are simply not the stats of a quitter. The quitter claim is completely baseless. The truth is the rest of the team and the fans quit on James, not he on them.

The Narcissist Claim

Whether his ego is a bit out of control or not I won't argue, but the notion that the whole "Decision" thing was about LeBron's ego being out of control is a tough conclusion to draw. In order to accept that one has to accept that there wasn't interest in the first place. Considering how the story had been bandied about in the media on a near daily basis for the last two years, it's hard to believe that the show actually would draw more attention. In fact, considering the reaction to "The Apology" as previously mentioned, he probably actually got less attention that way. Until someone establishes that ESPN would not have spent the next hour talking about James "Decision" regardless of how he announced it, claims that this was about ego are baseless. 

The Charity

Some have suggested that LeBron's charity event was just window dressing. Nothing could  be further from the truth. James' charity towards children goes much deeper and further than this. He's personally contributed a million dollars of his own money to ONEXONE alone, in addition to his other contributions. He's also a consistent presence at his basketball camps, lending more than just his name to them. The untold story behind the "he got dunked on story" from last summer is that he was there to be dunked on at all. And this summer, it seems that he's always doing something with a charity, whether it's bike-athons or basketball camps. Few NBA players give as much of their time or money to charity, and this claim is not only wrong, it's wrong-minded. James' should be lauded for charity work, not deplored. 

Charles Barkley 2.0

Charles Barkley, apparently not content with his earlier comments, had to go even further when he said, "I thought that his little one-hour special was a punk move." Sorry Charlie, that's not a punk move.  A punk, per Google definitions is, "hood: an aggressive and violent young criminal." If you want to know what a "punk move" is then an example would be breaking a man's nose in Milwaukee.  (click, really, there's a mug shot and everything.) A punk move is spitting on little girls. A punk move is driving under the influence. Hosting charity events that gain over 2.5 million dollars for the Boys and Girls Club of America is not a punk move.