Note to LeBron: Nothing’s Changed. You are Still Hated.

By Larry Durstin

Just after Elvis Presley’s death in 1977, his Svengali-like manager, Col. Tom Parker, was asked for a comment. “This doesn’t change anything,” is what the old, cigar-chomping hustler came up with, knowing that the King would continue to sell and sell and sell because… well, he’s the King and true royalty is eternal.

Now that the self-dubbed King of something or other, LeBron James, has raised the NBA trophy over his receding hairline, suck-ups and sycophants in the national media in general and ESPN in particular, are drooling over themselves claiming that his greatness has been established and the “haters” have been rebuked and need to admit it, get over it and and move on with their lives.

As someone who covered James as a journalist during the seven years he played in Cleveland, I can attest that there was never any doubt about his greatness. His character, however, is another matter entirely. And his team winning a title changes nothing about the belief that he colluded with Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Pat (Count Dracula) Riley to leave Cleveland long before his contract was up; that he continuously lied about his intentions regarding his future destination; and that he topped it all off by quitting on his team in the most important game of the season in order to somehow justify his mendacious maneuvering.

With this being the case, why would winning a title change anyone’s perception about what he did, or the lack of character he possesses. Put another way, if Judas Iscariot, instead of hanging himself, had gone on to win a loaves and fishes all-you-can-eat contest, would that alter in any way his image as history’s Great Betrayer?

For the duplicitous James, the Larry O’Brien championship trophy is nothing more than lipstick on a pig. It doesn’t change the one simple damning fact that he chickened out, he gave up, he stopped trying, he jumped ship like a rat, he abandoned his teammates, he deserted and was AWOL during Game 5 of the 2010 playoffs against Boston — thereby committing, Judas-like, the lone unpardonable sin for an athlete: Quitting. That and that alone is more than enough to condemn him to the basketball hall of shame. That and that alone warrants the everlasting scorn of not only Cleveland fans but sports enthusiasts everywhere. (Note: anyone who doubts that James tanked that game should check out the video. It’s all over YouTube and it’s not pretty.)

It’s been said that sports doesn’t build character, it reveals it. And that is certainly true of James, where the litany of his arrogance, self-glorification, sense of entitlement, blame-shifting and plain old deceit is long and manifests itself in both grand and subtle ways. Examples? How about him conducting a garish dog and pony show by inviting different teams to worship at his downtown Cleveland altar in hopes of wooing him, even though he had already decided to join the Heat. Or how he orchestrated the grotesque “Decision” on ESPN in which he lied through his teeth and said he made up his mind just that morning to join Miami.

And who can forget that gaudy circle jerk with Wade and Bosh on a fogged-up stage in which he promised seven or eight titles. Or that he said it was a matter of “karma” that the team he betrayed and abandoned was handed a 55-point beating by the Lakers. Or that, right before the 2011 Finals, he chose to make a cheap, near-pathological comment aimed right at his former teammates by saying that he went to Miami “because I wanted to be with guys who would never die down in the moment,” then went on to himself “die in the moment.” Or that he and Wade – acting like giggling 12-year-olds – mocked Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki’s playoff illness.

And what about, after performing miserably in last year’s Finals, how he sat at the microphone and – with an impish grin hinting more of delusion than charm – intoned that his critics would have to go back to their meaningless, problem-riddled lives. Or that, after a week or so of contemplating his colossal choke job against Dallas, he tweeted that God had decreed it wasn’t his time to win a title.

Or that this season, fueled by the likes of Michael Wilbon of ESPN who preposterously characterized the most lavishly praised and coddled athlete in recent memory as being a tragic victim of “haters,” the self-pitying James whimpered that when people don’t get what they want at the grocery store they blame it on him. Or that, upon his team winning the title, he participated in a Caligula-like gorge-fest in which – while sporting a t-shirt image of himself – he put the “I” back in team by rapping into the wee hours about how he-himself-LeBron-the Chosen One-the King was standing right in front of all the inebriated worshipers as an NBA champion.

Now it’s true that most, if not all, of these charges can be characterized as the sour grapes of embittered folks who need to “move on.” So be it. Both longstanding grudges and lifetimes of devotion relating to athletes and teams have been handed down from generation to generation often without rhyme or reason. That’s what being a sports fan is all about. There’s no reason and very little precedent to “move on” from that.

Similarly, as far as this “get a life” nonsense goes, does the person who gets all gooey and giddy about the wonders of James winning a title have more of a “life” than the fan who righteously refuses to give a pass to a traitorous man-child for quitting in the most important game of the season and then skipping out of town via an ugly haze of collusion and betrayal?

Many assert that the Cavaliers themselves are to blame for coddling James by giving him everything he wanted and if they had only exhibited tough love James would have seen the light and become transformed into a humble, thankful guy. Nonsense. That train left the station for the Chosen One sometime in high school. Or that the city’s toxic energy had suffocated the poor, self-obsessed superstar so severely that he had to leave, whether he wanted to or not. Ridiculous. Or that Cavalier owner Dan Gilbert’s “Decision” night letter proved that he viewed James as a slave when in reality what Gilbert did – to his everlasting credit – after being stabbed in the back was to stab the shameless ingrate right back.

Despite massive media efforts to portray James as the innocent victim who has had to practically endure the Passion of the Christ over the last year because of dim-witted despisers; despite him now casting himself as a studious guy by wearing lens-less glasses and reading children’s books before games; and despite the claims that he has been redeemed by being on a title-winning team, there are still plenty of folks who still hate him. God bless them all.

The ESPN apologists, the lens-less specs and the NBA crown changes nothing and certainly doesn’t wash away the stench of how he quit. To the contrary, they magnify the depths of his cowardly exit. The night he threw in the white flag and slithered off the court is a moment frozen in time forever, telling you everything you need to know about LeBron’s character. And no amount of trophies can change that one iota.

 

 

 

Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com

 

 

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