LeBron James and America Bumping Shoulders, What's the Real Problem?

Returning to the bench after the Miami Heat's loss to the Dallas Mavericks, LeBron James clearly and deliberately thrust his shoulder into his head coach Eric Spoelstra, knocking him sideways, who smiled and looked at him.

James immediately went into a tantrum, military pressing Spoelstra well over his head and slamming him down onto the hardwood floor. As Coach Spoelstra lay on the floor groaning and trying to move, James walked over to him, grabbed him by the hair and dragged him over to the bench where he repeatedly slammed his head into the bench, punctuating each slam with a deliberate syllable, "Too! Man! Nee! Min! Utes!" James screamed, nay shrieked with each violent slam.

Then, as Spoelstra lay spasming on the floor, his now toothless face rendered a mere bloodied mimicry of what had only moments before been an innocent smile, James, still not content with the fury he'd just deliberated, spat on the quivering blood bag at his feet. 

Alright, technically that's not what happened. But it might as well have been with the way that the world is reacting to the incidental contact that occurred after that loss. Technically, what happened is that as he was walking past James brushed up against him. Those of us who have watched more than one basketball game realize that a player bumping a coach is hardly a rare sight. However, when LeBron James does it, it becomes international news. 

Which brings me to the point of this article, which is that maybe people need to stop the feeding frenzy long enough to think that maybe the real problem isn't LeBron James. Maybe it has something to do with the way we as Americans have developed for ourselves something that I would like to dub a "Frankenstein Complex." 

Not content with our ordinary lives we like to take ordinary people who are capable of doing extraordinary things, and make them out to be extraordinary people. At one time LeBron James wasn't "The King." He was just a kid who played basketball like a man. His talent was well beyond his years. He had a capacity that went far beyond what anyone had ever shown at that age. 

So we started paying attention to him. He was constantly followed through his entire high school career. There was so much interest in him that some of his high school games were actually televised nationally on ESPN. Before he ever even played a single NBA game, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the cover story, literally titled, The Importance of Being LeBron.

The article then goes on and asks whether LeBron James, who was two weeks away from turning 19 at the time, "Can an 18-year-old shoulder the burden of a league, a city and a few corporations?" Nearly daily for the next seven years, he is highlighted on SportsCenter.

Somewhere in that time we, not he, dubbed him "King James." When his second contract (people forget that he did what Kevin Durant did the first time) was set to expire in two years, it became a daily log about where was he going to go. 

It can be safely said, that never, in the entire history of professional sports, was there more interest in where a free agent would sign. Then after having had the national media following him for the last two years and practically his entire life since childhood, James announced that because there was so much interest in his free agency, he would announce his "Decision" on a 30-minute special hosted by ESPN.

Immediately, countless commentators from the same network which had pitched the idea, and agreed to host "The Decision," launched into self-righteous diatribes about how egotistical it was for James to think that "it was all about him." (Of course I have yet to understand who it was about. If the story is about where he plays, isn't it all about him? If it wasn't about James, who was it about? But that's another story.)

My point here is that as a nation we'd told him it was all about him since he was 14 years old, and the moment he said it was, we turned on him. We created Frankenstein and then we blamed him for being created. Now we want to kill the monster. 

Did James commit any criminal wrong in scheduling, "The Decision?" No, and no one suggests he did, but there are those who have committed criminal wrongs whom we've more easily forgiven. Did he commit any great moral wrong here? Perhaps not "great," but there are two things which are often cited. 

First is, he should have told Dan Gilbert in person, and first. Personally, I'd agree that's true. He should have. But really, that's an addendum isn't it? The anger and the backlash started long before the actual decision was announced.

People say, "It's not what he did, it's how he did it." It's the show that got everyone riled, the arrogance that he was worth a 30-minute special to announce his decision. His great moral wrong was pride. 

Narcissist! It became the word most associated with James. We started wondering what right he had to "call himself King." We put it all on him. Everything we'd been telling him for all those years, he had the audacity, the unmitigated gall to believe.

If we, and by we I mean anyone who fits the criticism, really think that "the problem" is his narcissistic ego then how about instead of feeding the ego, you stop. If you want him to realize it's not "all about him" then stop telling him it's all about him. As a society, we spent a decade telling him it was all about him, but the moment we realized he believed us, we got offended.

But maybe we don't really think it's all about him. There's a strange effect at play. If we take an ordinary person, and then build him up to be extraordinary, and then we can tear him down, we feel as though it makes us better, even better than extraordinary.

Maybe it's time we stop investing our egos in people who play sports. When they are better than what we are, we establish our personal value by vicariously investing ourselves in them. When they fail to be what we think we are, we establish our personal value by pronouncing ourselves better.

The reason that we get so bothered that James thought it was all about himself is that he failed to realize, it's all about us. If you stop and think though, you might remember, that Frankenstein was not the name of the monster, it was the name of his creator.