ihatelebronjames.com

Hear ye! Hear ye! Your Kind and Benevolent Lord and Master, King James I, The Chosen One, The Golden Child, sees fit to bestow a glorious apology upon his loyal subjects!

Weasly-ass ESPNBAvid $tern reversed his decision to waive the fine for LeBron’s press conference no-show after game 6.  No huge surprise there, considering the avalanche of criticism he’s been receiving.  It’s only $25K, after all. 

After announcing the reversal, Stern then proceeded to apologize for his little brat:

“He asked that I express to the media, the Magic and the fans his apology, and particularly the young fans, because he knows he has a responsibility to all of our fans, and that sportsmanship is appropriate whether you win or whether you lose,” Stern said.

LeBron can’t just go on television and say he’s sorry?

Bad: Not immediately apologizing when you’ve been a huge jerk.

Worse: Refusing to apologize the following day after considering how big of a douche you’ve been.

Worser: Having your PR chump apologize for you.

The absolute fucking worst: Never apologizing.  Having your daddy clean up the mess by inventing and issuing an apology for you.

What a joke.  I think it’s pretty obvious that Stern simply invented this apology.

Nike, if you’re going to build up an obnoxious muppet-based ad campaign based on Kobe vs. LeBron, you might want to wait until they actually meet up in the playoffs to put that shit out. 

Since LeBron failed to hold up his part of the bargain and got his ass eliminated by the Magic, some hilarious dude took it upon himself to fix up the commercial and make it a little more accurate: 

LeBron you ain’t got no rings…

Hey Lebron, LEBRON, why they call you the king if you can win the big one? 

AAAAHCHOOO…excuse me, I’m allergic to losers…

King James I, the Chosen One, as he was worshipped in 2006:

“I think he finishes off Detroit….I think this will be one of those rare games when you know something momentous is happening as you’re watching, even though it’s not finished happening yet. I think tonight becomes his version of MJ’s 63-point game in the Boston Garden, Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album, Ali’s KO over Liston, Pacino’s scene in Louis’ Restaurant, Tiger’s minus-18 in Augusta. I think the Pistons walk off the court in a fog, wondering what the hell just happened. I think nothing in the NBA will be the same for another 12-15 years.”

This crap came out of Bill Simmon’s mouth way back when many idiots genuinely believed LeBron was the Chosen One.  LeBron had finally arrived at a defining moment in his career.  He had a chance to back up the hype and legitimize his reputation.  Then a funny thing happened -  LeBron failed.  And then he failed again.  And again.  And then again once more.  LeBron’s response to the Bill Simmons of the world?  One of the most remarkable game seven meltdowns in playoff history as the Cavs were eliminated by the Pistons.  The following year, LeBron was embarrassingly swept by the Spurs in the finals.  I don’t even remember a single game from that series. The year after that, LeBron bumbled and stumbled his way to hundreds of free throws but still couldn’t get past the Celtics due to a shooting percentage in the low 30s.  This year, LeBron had a theatrical and ultimately meaningless game winner early in the series (how many of these has he missed – dozens?) as the Cavs were unceremoniously dumped by the Magic in 6 games.

Oh, how things have changed.  Sure, the hype is still unbearable and everything looks the same on the Sportscenter-skinned surface - LeBron can do no wrong, he is an unstoppable force, the best player in the NBA, the MVP, the next Oscar Robertson, etc. – but no reasonable person truly believes the crap anymore, with the exception of the worst LeBron homers out there (post away and prove my point, assholes).  This year, there were no bold predictions of greatness from any reasonable sports journalists - just half-hearted, obligatory LeBron praise to please the various corporate masters.  Why?  LeBron has been exposed.  He is not the next Michael Jordan.  He will never be the next Michael Jordan.  He won’t be the next anybody.  He doesn’t even have a decent jumpshot, for fuck’s sake.  A lucky buzzer-beater doesn’t mean much when you lose a series in 6.

Of course, the LeBron apologists were out in force repeating the standard “LeBron can’t do it all himself” bullshit that has been circulating for years.  Here’s a fact, people – LeBron blew game 6 offensively, his teammates didn’t.  The only player that shot worse than LeBron was sorry-ass Wally Szczerbiak.  LeBron was 8 for 20 for the game, counting garbage points.  He didn’t score a single point in the crucial second quarter as the Magic built up a permanent lead.  He even pulled his signature “OH MY GOD, MY EYEBALL HAS JUST BEEN VICIOUSLY GOUGED BY THAT MEAN MAN” move in the first quarter.  He didn’t get the reaction from the zebras that he wanted and got frustrated.  LeBron “playmaker” Jame gave the ball away short time later when he lost a lazy standing dribble.  Embarrassed, I’m guessing, he bull-charged some poor sap on his next trip down the court, got the BS call, and badly bricked two consecutive free throws a few seconds later.  And that was the ballgame.  LeBron was a non-factor from that point forward.  He sat around the perimeter pouting, attempted some awful shots, and forced a bunch of awkward drives.  Mr. Potato Head, brilliant motivator that he is, even picked up a tech at the half to grease the refs and fire up the crybaby.  Coach of the Year, indeed.  It didn’t work.  LeBron’s bull-charge stopped being about getting to the basket and started being about putting fouls on Dwight Howard.  No amount of ref-coddling could save him at that point.  Game over.

As I have just established, LeBron certainly has a wealth of experience coming up short in big games.  You’d think he be used to all of the losing by now.  Apparently not.  For the second season in a row, LeBron stormed off the court and ran directly to the locker room, bailing on his teammates and the required press conference.  So fun-lovin’ LeBron will choreograph an intricate dance routine with his teammates when they are running up the score against some losers during the regular season, but he can’t even look a teammate in the eye and congratulate him at the conclusion of a long, hard-fought season?  What happened to LeBron’s unselfish team-first attitude we’re always hearing about?  His leadership?  LeBron clearly doesn’t think his team mates are worthy of his greatness.  As mere men, they certainly aren’t the equal of NBA royalty.  They are LeBron’s subjects.  Inadequate peasants, the source of constant disappointment to their master:

“I’m only one guy,” James said. “I took Hedo in the first game and Rashard made the shot. I took Rashard in the second game and Hedo made the shot.

“If I could clone myself, we’d be all right. But I can’t.”

Holy shit.  Have you ever heard of another player publicly stating that he wishes his teammates could be replaced with clones of himself?  LeBron’s arrogance is truly limitless.

Since LeBron couldn’t even make eye contact with his own teammates after the loss, it obviously never crossed his mind to congratulate the Magic after the game.  Check out this bizarre email “explanation” LeBron sent to Dwight Howard the day after the loss:

“It’s hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them,” he said. “I’m a winner. It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate them. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a competitor. That’s what I do. It doesn’t make sense for me to go over and shake somebody’s hand.”

Way to go and document your poor sportsmanship in an email for the whole world to see, doofus.  A spoiled brat running away and pouting in the emotion of the moment is one thing, but refusing to back down and defending your ridiculously immature behavior after you’ve had time to think it over is quite another.  LeBron simply does not believe anything he does is wrong.  He continued to insist that his “crab dribble” wasn’t a travel, even after hundreds of replays on sportscenter.  He has denied elbowing opposing players in the face, even though he knows very well that every game is videotaped from 20 different angles.  King James does not need to apologize to his subjects.  And he never will.  He is a classless jerk.

Happy trails, LeBron.  Go home and play with your toys.

I leave you Cavs fans with a question: When LeBron put on his headphones after game 6, do you think he was listening to Jay-Z?

Shocker.  ESPNBAvid $tern goes soft on LeBron.  Despite the fact that LeBron rudely skipped the post-game press conference, the league waived the mandatory fine.

LeBron James is David Stern’s spoiled little brat…or business partner…or both.  Mike Lupica from the New York Daily News nails it:

First the league said it wasn’t going to fine him, because this was a first offense, as if that’s supposed to come into play. Stern wouldn’t come out Tuesday and say exactly what he wanted to do, almost asking not to be pressed on the matter. Not sounding as much like the NBA commissioner on this one as one of James’ teammates, the ones who did have to stick around and talk about losing to the Magic. Or, and more likely, one of LeBron James’ business partners.

In the painful irony department, LeBron appeared in an NBA Cares commercial that aired during game 6.  His speaking line?  “Sportsmanship.”  Go to 1:14 to skip all the sappy bullshit:

100% hilarious:

LeBron does the most shamefully pathetic dive of his career, gets the call:

Gets two free points, ties the game with seconds to go:

Sideshow Bob mugs Howard, no call:

Stan Van Gundy is all like ”WTF?!”

Overtime, clock ticking down, LeBron gets a shot off…BRICK. 

Game Over.

Stan Van Gundy’s game 3 post-game press conference was priceless.  Watch it here.

Reporter: Stan, the foul that Dwight fouled out on and a couple other call on LeBron…they don’t even look like fouls sometimes.  Can you comment on that?

Stan: Nope. But you can.  You write a column.  And see, the league won’t fine you $25,000 or whatever.  So…so you write it.  That’s what I love - you guys see it, but you don’t want to write it.  But you want me to comment on it so now I’m a whiner and I get fined.  You saw it, write what you saw.

How *dare* you! This is *my* ball. I AM KING JAMES!!!

In the NBA, you can be fined for complaining about a call if you are a coach, even when you are unquestionably right.  The press can write whatever they want, but they rarely write stories critical of LeBullshit.  Consequentially, LeBron James has become a monster and the last two minutes of every close playoff game (arguably the only part of a basketball game worth watching) are a usually a joke.  Thanks, ESPNbavid $tern.  Even the defensive player of the year (carrying 5 fouls in a pivotal playoff game) doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt on a decisive defensive play when he goes up against LeBron.  When you guard LeBron, you are simply “the guy who is about to foul LeBron.”

You know the situation has gotten completely out of control when Bill Simmons, one of the most eager and enthusiastic of all LeBron fellaters, capable of writing super-romanticized bullshit like this:

In Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, with one second to play and his Cavaliers trailing by two, a 6-foot-9, 275-pound local kid from Akron bullied toward the basket like a tight end. His goal was to jump as high as he could, extend his hands 2 feet over the 10-foot rim, then catch a lob from 50 feet away that had to be perfectly thrown. When his path was cut off, he recalibrated his mission almost as a navigation system reroutes a car, darted away from the basket toward the top of the key, caught a pass coming from his left, turned toward the rim, took a split second to center his body, bounced off the balls of his feet, extended in the air, then arched a 24-foot shot over the extended fingers of a 6-foot-10 opponent from Turkey. Even as he released the shot, he was falling backward, so his momentum carried him toward the other basket. Somehow, the shot rattled home. And that’s when LeBron James turned around, sought out his teammates and joyously hopped into their arms.

This was one of the bigger moments in recent NBA history: The time when our latest hope for “The Next Jordan” actually did something MJ would have done. Like so many other die-hards, I spent the next 24 hours rehashing the moment through phone calls and e-mails and texts.

…can force himself to admit this:

[Jordan was the best and worst thing to happen to the NBA because he created] a generation of one-on-one players who careen toward the basket in big moments, create some form of contact and hope officials will bail them out. With four seconds to play in Game 4 and his team trailing by 2, LeBron put his head down, dribbled as fast as he could and prayed Michael Pietrus would either bump him or trip him. If you watch the clip, he’s moving so fast that it would have been humanly impossible for him to make a shot. That wasn’t his goal. He wanted a call. And he got one. Their feet got tangled, LeBron lurched forward, and the refs bailed him out.

Both of these quotes came from the same article.  This is what drives me crazy about Bill Simmons.  He clearly and obviously sees what is happening to the NBA.  His knows the history of the game in a way that very few dorks are capable.  He can even recall a particular foul Bill Laimbeer committed against some guy from the Clippers in the 2nd quarter of a regular season game 20 years ago and what kind of doritos he was eating at the time.   He has correctly identified the problem with the modern game (see above) and even offers a few reasonable solutions to this problem.   But then he turns around and produces piles and piles of his own hero-worship bullshit (with some of the most comically overwrought sportswriting ever), the root cause of the problem he has just identified.  Wow.  Whether he realizes it or not, he is actively contributing to the demise of his beloved NBA, nudging it further and further away from his own ideal vision of the game.  I just don’t get it.

Sports journalists are the only people able to freely criticize the bullshit without getting fined.  They are the only people with an audience large enough and an influence great enough to force some kind of change in the bullshit.  Yet, these very same journalists rely on this hero-worship bullshit to pay their bills, thanks to the atmosphere fostered by Nike and Sportscenter.  Looks like we’re stuck.

So, Stan, this is why jerk reporters won’t write the obvious fucking columns they need to be writing.  And they probably never will.

11-28 from the field.  24 free throws.  Very impressive…if you’re (present-day) Allen Iverson.  Blindfolded.  Playing without a coach like it’s 2001.

7

*CLANG*

LeBron clearly got the help he needed from the refs.  Guess he needed more.  He made exactly two shots from beyond one inch, yet he still wound up with over 40 points.  Still no jumpshot.  Amazing.  You’ve earned this massive ostrich egg, MVP:

I’ve been getting a ton of email about the “The Greatest Tragedy in Sports,”  an amateur documentary detailing David Stern’s douchebaggery from the 1985 Ewing draft lottery conspiracy to the 2002 Lakers/Kings Western Conference Final.  I thought I’d finally post something.  I’m not saying I think every claim this guy makes is legit.  I have no idea if it’s all true or even mostly true.  But I can tell you this - it’s not all bogus.  If even one tenth of this stuff has merit, ESPNBAvid $tern is a total jerk.  This documentary was obviously made by a Sacramento Kings fan/Lakers hater.  So why is this important for ihatelebronjames.com?  Because it makes the same argument that I’ve made here (of course a bit more seriously and with much higher production values) - that the NBA has become a choreographed joke based on superstar worship.  The shenanigans described in this documentary have become firmly and permanently entrenched in the NBA to such an extent that sportscasters refuse to write about favoritism, or worse - they accept it as a normal part of the game.  The governing philosophy of the David Stern era - that superstars generate super profits - benefits the Lakers, Celtics, Jordans, and Kobes of the world to the detriment to the rest of the players and teams.  LeBron James is currently the primary beneficiary.  He’s fine with that.  ESPN is fine with that.  Nike is fine with that.  Gatorade is fine with that.  If you’re a fan of the Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Bobcats, Los Angeles Clippers, Washington Wizards, Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves, Toronto Raptors, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trailblazers, Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Hornets, or Sacramento Kings, you’re not fine with that.

“The Greatest Tragedy in Sports” - Part 1(of 9):

If the above embed doesn’t work, here is the link.

I have just discovered a fantastic LeBron website (thanks, Tamislav), LeBron Travel TV. It’s a youtube video channel devoted to the documentation of LeBron’s bumbling and stumbling bullshit. The camera doesn’t lie.