Why hating LeBron as a man is unjustified

[JohnU]

I honestly never gave any thought to hating athletes for any real reason, though some more high-profile ones -- mostly NFL guys -- are on my list of people who I want to fail at their sport.

 

[Wamu]

^ This ^

He's done some douchey things, like the decision.

But, this alone is reason enough to hate him.

Don't you think Cavs fans felt the same about Jordan?

I bet they still hate Horry in Sacto....lol

All of his basketball & goofy social media related nonsense aside I actually have nothing but the upmost respect for LeBron the person. All the college scholarships he's given out so far & his yearly bike-a-thon mean a lot to the struggling families & kids back home. And he's going to be opening up a school for at risk kids. I think it opens this fall.

 

[WiggyRuss]

Saw someone post this on Facebook:

LeBron grew up poor. He was basically homeless for a significant portion of his childhood. He had little formal education, few role models and limited training.

He married his high school sweet heart. Never arrested. Never used drugs. Never embarrassed his wife with side chic stories. Never in the news with so much as a parking ticket. He has been a great father, heavily involved with kids activities and he has been the best player on the planet for the last decade.

If we are truly being honest with ourselves, I doubt anybody here would be able to live as trouble free a life as LeBron if they had the same background, the big money, and all the media scrutiny LeBron is forced to endure. It is pretty amazing, really.

hes better than Kobe though so a lot of people on the Left Coast dont like him...lol.

 

[broncosmitty]

Put it like this.

He had less schooling than probably everyone here.

When he was in elementary school, he was basically in charge of himself and he strayed home playing video games about as often as he attended.

A couple youth coaches invested in him because of his obvious freakish athleticism and gave him structure in his life that his mom couldn't/wouldn't provide.

But, he was also an inherehtly good kid. When given the opportunity to make the right choices, he mostly did.

You're giving a lot of Hooplans credit that I certainly won't. There are some straight up dumbfucks on this site who it wouldn't surprise me if they were raised by wolves.


He's a dork. And a hard worker. I like him as a dude and baller. I respect him as a person. But he's not Atypical. I mean, aside from being the most impressive athlete I've ever seen.


He just doesn't wanna pretend he's something he isn't, like a good number of athletes unfortunately do.(Chris Webber comes to mind.) Hell, a good number of people in general. And I credit his mother, for loving him. Love goes a long way in this world. Especially for a child.

As does the absence of hate.

 

[Shanemansj13]

Nah.

He said yesterday he wasn't ever coming back.

I wouldn’t come back either if he witnessed the player he hates and obsesses over have one of the best games ever lolz

 

[Shanemansj13]

Little formal education?


I'm a fan of LeBron, but he went to a private school. And admittedly smoked pot. Let's not canonize him because he grew up poor.


What he lacked as a child, was not love. And that is the most important thing. His mother deserves credit for raising a child to respect others and value relationships. He knows who is friends are.


Which is what scares me about Rob Pelinka.

Yeah luckily for him he grew around some good guys, most on the basketball team at St V’s St Mary’s. One of his best friends’, Dru Joyce III, his dad was actually a coach there, Dru Joyce. So that definitely helps.
I had a chance to get his autograph at Applebee’s one time when I was a kid. I looked back over and he was gone. I hate myself but I blame my dad, he said he was going to do it but he was waiting until they finished lunch lol

 

[Black Adam]

hes better than Kobe though so a lot of people on the Left Coast dont like him...lol.

keep fooling yourself into thinking Kobe has anything to do with it...

as far as coming up from the ghetto? yeah...

not all that impressed...

 

[msgkings322]

Saw someone post this on Facebook:

LeBron grew up poor. He was basically homeless for a significant portion of his childhood. He had little formal education, few role models and limited training.

He married his high school sweet heart. Never arrested. Never used drugs. Never embarrassed his wife with side chic stories. Never in the news with so much as a parking ticket. He has been a great father, heavily involved with kids activities and he has been the best player on the planet for the last decade.

If we are truly being honest with ourselves, I doubt anybody here would be able to live as trouble free a life as LeBron if they had the same background, the big money, and all the media scrutiny LeBron is forced to endure. It is pretty amazing, really.

Yeah I don't see how an immature TV show about changing teams and (correctly) being very sure of himself as a player negates all that and makes him unlikable. I literally do not see that point of view at all. People have different opinions than me on a million things, and I can usually see where they're coming from. Not on this.

 

[msgkings322]

I have a hard time respecting anyone who's never done drugs. But maybe that's on me.

Trump not your bag then.

 

[msgkings322]

I don't hate Lebron as a person... I think my "hatred" is due to all the ballwashing the media does for him... I think he is a tremendous basketball player, one of the best... but he's not on my team and he killed my team, so I have to "hate" him, no? lol

Right, sports 'hate' is different than hating the person. I 'hated' the 1990s Yankees but honestly the players were very likeable people for the most part.

But there are some LeBron haters (don't need to name them) who hate the man so much they don't want him winning rings for their team. Just don't get it.

 

[msgkings322]

Honestly, I rarely ever care about a players personal life.

I hated Kobe because he was a killer and kept making me late for work with all those fucking parades.

I hate Dray because he kept sticking his boot up Blake's ass.

Sports make you irrational.

It's about emotions, not common sense.

Let em hate.

This is a good point, you can argue (correctly) that you shouldn't hate this guy or that guy but in the end it's just a tribal game and about emotions not facts.

 

[Black Adam]

Right, sports 'hate' is different than hating the person. I 'hated' the 1990s Yankees but honestly the players were very likeable people for the most part.

But there are some LeBron haters (don't need to name them) who hate the man so much they don't want him winning rings for their team. Just don't get it.

"i'll be getting my money while all of you people will be going back to your regular jobs"-paraphrasing LeClown James, after losing to the Mavs after the 2011 finals...

his arrogance has always been apparent...

as has his sour grapes attitude...

so no , i truly don't him soiling my team's colors...

ever...

 

[DJ]

I know I will never stop hating Horry.


That lousy, shooting from the corner as time expires, asshole.

Also hate Shaun Elliot's kidneys.

*Sean Elliott's*

 

[DJ]

@DorianRo

 

[tlance]

"i'll be getting my money while all of you people will be going back to your regular jobs"-paraphrasing LeClown James, after losing to the Mavs after the 2011 finals...

his arrogance has always been apparent...

as has his sour grapes attitude...

so no , i truly don't him soiling my team's colors...

ever...

To be fair....

That wasn't just after losing to the Mavs. It was after an entire year of being hated almost everywhere he went with every single action picked apart by media to a ridiculous degree. After being blamed for the Finals loss (rightly so).

I forget the exact context of the interview, but he was defintely being publically criticized when he responded with that. It wasn't just after a loss.

 

[RobToxin]

Put it like this.

He had less schooling than probably everyone here.

When he was in elementary school, he was basically in charge of himself and he strayed home playing video games about as often as he attended.

A couple youth coaches invested in him because of his obvious freakish athleticism and gave him structure in his life that his mom couldn't/wouldn't provide.

But, he was also an inherehtly good kid. When given the opportunity to make the right choices, he mostly did.

Most people don't hate him for his choices.

But for his Decision.

 

[black francis]

he did lie about his LA house being vandalized with racist slurs, which is a pretty shitty thing to lie about.

that makes him a race baiter like Michael Bennett

 

[Raw_Bee808]

"i'll be getting my money while all of you people will be going back to your regular jobs"-paraphrasing LeClown James, after losing to the Mavs after the 2011 finals...

his arrogance has always been apparent...

as has his sour grapes attitude...

so no , i truly don't him soiling my team's colors...

ever...

This wasn't a good look either...

 

[gordontrue]

"i'll be getting my money while all of you people will be going back to your regular jobs"-paraphrasing LeClown James, after losing to the Mavs after the 2011 finals...

his arrogance has always been apparent...

as has his sour grapes attitude...

so no , i truly don't him soiling my team's colors...

ever...

That's not paraphrasing, that's editorializing.

He said "at the end of the day you all go back to your lives and I go back to mine."

Now my turn to editorialize.


What he meant was that at the end of the day, the outcome of a game doesn't really change your life as a fan of even as a player. You can root for or against an athlete, and you get some level of entertainment/enjoyment/disappointment out of it, but eventually you step back into your life and it is what it always was.

The phrasing of it, combined with people's own defensiveness about their shitty lives, made people think he was contrasting his life quality with the life quality of fans, when really he was comparing them.

And that message of "dont let sports results define your life" is the same one he repeats today in almost every press conference... He's just gotten better at articulating it.

 

[broncosmitty]

Yeah luckily for him he grew around some good guys, most on the basketball team at St V’s St Mary’s. One of his best friends’, Dru Joyce III, his dad was actually a coach there, Dru Joyce. So that definitely helps.
I had a chance to get his autograph at Applebee’s one time when I was a kid. I looked back over and he was gone. I hate myself but I blame my dad, he said he was going to do it but he was waiting until they finished lunch lol

He definitely had a solid group of friends as a kid.

I mentioned Rob Pelinka earlier, who used to be his agent. Lakers are the only place I could see him leaving for. Because of Pelinka. Even though LeBron fired him, it was for a lifelong friend.

I think part of him leaving Miami was Pat Riley. And his overstepping boundaries when it came to the James family.

Good on you for letting the man eat his lunch, good, in the neighborhood.