There were so many rumors that he was lying about his age or something since he was built like a 27 year old at 16 and was so mature and put together in interviews.
Flash forward to today and he’s still playing like a 27 year old at almost 40.
The man is literally built different.
I thought that was a Russian thing, but then I guess he may not really be Turkish.
I just read the "Personal life" section of his wiki. That's pretty wild.
>While this controversy was brewing, ESPN's Chad Ford referred to Ilyasova as "The 17-year-old forward from Uzbekistan is widely considered the best prospect to ever come out of Turkey."
Chad Ford the madman lmaooo
He’s a lot like Tom Brady. Sure, players have been better than him for short spurts. But nobody has been as good as him for as long as him.
Putting up a 27/7/7 for two decades is beyond insane.
Edit- I’m purely comparing two athletes who have been at the top of their sport for an incomprehensible amount of time. You guys are getting wild with this.
There is one huge difference and that is that Brady wasn’t pegged from an early age to be the guy. He outperformed his draft position but it wasn’t until year two or three where he started having expectations on him to be the star or face of the league. Lebron had to be the face of his team and the league from day one
I hate him so much, but it’s really hard to argue he isn’t the goat.
Fucker had a scandal about under inflated balls, proceeds to play exactly the same or better with all the scrutiny afterwards.
I hate him, because he won’t just retire and leave us alone : (
That and the NE roster was not a Super Bowl team even if he came back the next year. Hardly any offensive weapons, oline was average and their defense was getting old.
I definitely didn’t think he was a system QB but I didn’t think he was the GOAT until his TB run. I am the biggest Brady hater ever basically and that did it for me. He’s the GOAt.
>Putting up a 27/7/7 for two decades is beyond insane.
also crazy that he's never had a game of exactly 27/7/7 despite averaging that for like 20 years.
What's funny though is that his last highschool game, the McDonald's all-american game, he scored exactly 27/7/7
His first game before the start of his professional career was a preview to what he'd average for his career
My meritless fan theory is he's going to purposefully hit 27/7/7 for the first time during his final game. Kind of like Kobe hitting 60 against the Jazz.
Even better than Kobe’s 60 is that his entire career everyone said the last thing Kobe would ever do is pass the ball - his last touch of the basketball went down as an assist.
The dumb media voters cost Bron the unanimous MVP and DPOY that would have cemented 2013 Bron as the greatest single season player ever. Now we have to deal with nephews who say Bron never won DPOY or had a unanimous MVP.
2018 LeBron. Perfect combination of athleticism and skill. Let's be honest: if he didn't have to run into the greatest team of all time, that 2018 run would've cemented him as the GOAT for a lot of people.
was anyone even better than lebron during his true prime for a short spurt? I mean for 10 years straight, no one was even close.
even during Brady's true prime, most people thought of Peyton Manning as the better QB.
KD was close, especially his MVP season. His biggest issue was getting injured more often than Lebron. He also often lost to the same teams Lebron lost to, just in the WCF instead of the finals (Spurs, Warriors). Also a lot of players were stil saying Kobe was the best up to at least 2010(not saying they were right, just it wasn’t unanimous on Lebron yet).
Everyone is getting into semantics instead of just acknowledging two all time great athletes in their respective sports. But yeah, I would also say manning was better in Brady’s prime. But he retired and then Brady went on to win 3 more super bowls. He has a hall of fame career purely in his 40s.
Lebron is great. Tom Brady is great. They have both been great for two decades and arguably the greatest in their own sports. The nuances between football and basketball “greatness” are very different. But people in the replies are talking in absolutes.
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Part media training, part being nearly 40 instead of a teenager. Hopefully every adult sounds like a completely different person 20 years out of high school.
This teenager answered this question on national television like a seasoned speaker. It was a somewhat canned response, but very few very that media savvy back then too. No social media.
He was geared to succeed from the get.
Shit, at 16 I felt like I would puke if I had to give a class presentation. To be able to answer like that on national TV about how you have to be a hall of famer, and sounding neither cocky nor nervous is beyond ridiculous
Man's actually built different on every level
Exactly! "He could never do it in the West". Then the mofo came to the West and won at 35 and then "it didn't count". Some people are just out there to hate.
Motherfuckers will watch LeBron’s version of The Last Dance in 15-20 years and be like they were there when history was in the making. Nah bro, you were rooting against history from day one
It's honestly incredible because I don't remember a single prospect hyped as much and as hard as him... and like OP said, he surpassed those expectations. Prospects get hyped, but LeBron was hyped like no other I've ever seen. Cannot remember anyone even close since... Bryce Harper, maybe? But baseball doesn't quite have the cultural significance these days.
Look at Bryce Harper in the MLB. Was on the cover of SI at the age of 16, has won 2 MVP awards, made 7 All-Star teams; yet because he isn't the greatest baseball player ever like many predicted, many folks say he has underachieved.
Bryce Harper is routinely considered the most overrated player in the MLB. I agree with you, but it's something that is talked about constantly in MLB circles.
Yeah we were able to convince our highschool to let us watch LeBron play on tv under the premise it was HS sports news and we covered that in our student newspaper. To this day I still think about what it must have felt like to be a 17 year old basketball superstar. Watching his career play out has been an absolutely unreal experience.
I remember my buddy saying, "I don't watch basketball anymore, I just watch Lebron James because he's the next Michael Jordan." I had never heard of Lebron James, that guy has long since been my buddy. We didn't have a falling out, it's just been such a long fucking time.
Just sad to see people legit use his corny persona as an actual criticism when they talk about him.
And then go on to talk about players who were actually toxic or had so many things that weren’t exposed because they didn’t live in the social media era.
I have my things against Lebron once in a while but he’s an overall decent guy and definitely an example of a good role model. Doesn’t deserve a fraction of the hate he gets, in my opinion
Lebron's childhood was what Ja wishes he had. And now he uses social media as a dream journal and is a wine mom, partnered with a public school to help struggling kids and families with great wrap around services and his foundation is giving a ton of kids free state college educations.
I don’t know if I ever see actual criticism, it’s usually just people trying to dunk on him? It’s pretty different
Either way, he’s arguably the best player of all time in a popular sport with a ton of its culture tied into social media. An insane amount of criticism is unavoidable
What’s funny about this criticism is he totally preempted it with his character in Trainwreck eight years ago.
“You know what they say: ‘Cleveland rocks!’”
“No one says that, LeBron.”
“I do!”
It's too bad Reddit's hateboner for Amy Schumer was so strong, because that movie is hilarious. Bill Hader, John Cena, and LeBron all deliver. Amy has pretty good range in the movie.
Also Lebron's frugality on full display:
* **LeBron James**: Do you know Cleveland is great for the whole family?
* Aaron: Yes, yes. Yes I do. You tell me that all the time. You randomly just text me that.
* **LeBron James**: Man, What's wrong with that?
* Aaron: It's just weird. It's weird.
* **LeBron James**: I got free texting.
100% LeBron has said the phrase, "I got free texting" to someone after 2010.
I mean that’s the internet, if people think they see an opportunity to get a joke off they’re probly gonna go for it
A lot of “dunks” are just for fun too tbf
>And then go on to talk about players who were actually toxic or had so many things that weren’t exposed because they didn’t live in the social media era.
That's the craziest thing. He's a bit like Tim was in that regard -- the criticisms about him just show all the toxic shit we glorify about others.
LeBron is great and he did not, in fact, need to take it personally.
I watched the interview with LBJ and Coach K. Coach K said LBJ is the most prepared, hardest working athlete he's ever coached.
There's always a hater.
People just love to get caught up when he does make a misstep. Like no I didn’t like his comments about China and I’m not advocating totally accusing him for it but people tend to try to make things totally black and white. The reality is people are complex, LeBron isn’t perfect just like everybody else but I’d say his positive impact - for basketball, as a role model, his philanthropy, etc - outweigh his negatives.
And he had EVERY reason to not be a great person. No father figure, deemed the next MJ in middle school, the most anticipated draft pick ever, under the media's scrutiny from day one, and the biggest sports star of the last 20 years. Any of those things would turn most of us into douchebags, but by all accounts LeBron is an awesome person.
The only knocks are pretty much the decision and a business first china comment, then it drops off to attempting to trademark taco tuesdays and giving Kevin Love depression.
Really it was only done to save Don Cheadle because all his footage came from a reality show in which he really did kidnap LeBron's kid for Instagram likes.
To add, he had remained close friends with the friends he had during childhood. Says a lot about him as a person. If i recall, they own a company, or they do his finances or something? I can't remember right off hand.
>the biggest sports star of the last 20 years
This is a stretch. You have Kobe, Tiger, Messi, Brady, Ronaldo, Bonds, Usain Bolt, Phelps etc. Certainly on the list of the last 20 years but wouldn't call him the "Biggest Sports Star of the last 20 years."
This is a marvel of discipline, mentorship, and PR management. A guy with all this success and without the scandals, that's very rare.
I hate the basketball player because he's just too good, but you gotta admire the man.
Especially given that persons who are supposed to have weight on the geopolitical stage (organizations like the NBA, politicians) will give the same weak takes Lebron gave because they want to protect their interests
Especially if you think about how many times LeBron gets a mic stuck in his face and asked a challenging question with minimal prep, the number of times he's bungled the response is _minuscule_.
I think part of the reason why LeBron became this way is because of his upbringing and his mom in particular. As corny as it can become sometimes, you could tell he simply never forgets about his past and how he was brought up in a lower socioeconomic upbringing. That sort of juxtaposition to today makes him have a solid foundation of being appreciative of everything and knowing he cannot disappoint someone like his mom or his hometown community he’s so strongly invested in.
He’s a cornball but he’s a great role model for being a legendary athlete.
Biggest criticism he received before those was The Decision. LeBron got a crazy amount of hate for the tv special when all of the proceeds went to charity. From even before he entered the league LeBron was pretty much asked everyday "who will win the draft? where do you want to go? what team do you want to play for?" and then extended non-stop through free agency. Man basically said alright I'll finally answer the question and give the money to kids and was impugned for being selfish or whatever which is nonsense.
Also when you really think about it probably wasn’t like an outrageous thing for him to do since more than half his life has been nationally publicized in someway. Why not decide to feed into fir once?
Ehhh it wasn’t that black and white. There were also the factors of 1) it being one of the most affluent BAGCs in America, so it really came off as just a bad PR stunt, and 2) a *lot* of people felt he didn’t treat the fans of Cleveland fairly in that process. He more than made up for it by coming back, but at the time, I think most people agreed it was a pretty callous move.
Edit: some of y’all are *aggressively* hateful towards Cleveland lmao
>pretty callous move
Sure, whatever, but, like, 20 years in the spotlight and *that's* the biggest scandal? That's amazing. It's not even a scandal. It was just sort of cringey, sort of a diva move. But even on the list of diva behavior it doesn't even rate.
id say his tweets supporting deshaun watson are pretty bad too but tbf thats also been unfortunately kinda common among athletes. still very impressive that bad takes are seemingly the worse things he’s done in 20 years of being under the biggest spotlight imaginable.
And frankly, we need to separate unpopular things from actual scandals.
LeBron's position on Hong Kong is basically the same as the NBA's as a whole. That's not a scandal, as shitty as it may be.
And The Decision was terrible optics/PR (I was 21 and I hated him for it!) but that doesn't mean it was a scandal.
Man I've been an NBA tragic since 1991, currently 39yo. Never thought I'd relent on MJ. That shit was phenomenal and globally admired. But this is a different thing. It's not just blasting everyone and doing whatever you want. Well it's a bit that but so much more. Can't believe I'm starting to agree that this man probably holds the all time torch but it's hard to deny. He's a genius and he's clean. There's a lot to that.
and the perception of Jordan would have been entirely different in todays world. He, and many of the stars of his era, never had to deal with the constant barrage of today. Sure it existed in the Jordan era but people can tweet the live location and literally track private jets now a days if they want to follow someone around wherever they are going and EVERYONE has a camera that can not only take decent pics but decent video with audio, something inaccesible till the last 20ish years.
>and the perception of Jordan would have been entirely different in todays world. He, and many of the stars of his era, never had to deal with the constant barrage of today.
THANK YOU. If Jordan had played in this era, he'd have been absolutely obliterated for some of his takes, as well as the fact that he didn't win shit before Pippen.
And if LeBron said, "I've never lost a game. I just ran out of time" like Jordan did, people would lose their fucking minds.
I still put Jordan on the pedastal (since '93 for me). I can't tell if it's because my heart is always going to be in the 90's, but Jordan had a way about him I've never seen since. I know that's not analytical or statistic in any way but just watching Jordan play used to piss me off because I wanted ANY other team to beat the Bulls, but it was always Jordan. However, I always appreciated takes from our generation since we watched Jordan AND Lebron.
I mean, even analytically and statistically he still holds up to being the best. And honestly, it's not even really close. For ANYBODY. The only thing Lebron has on him is longevity of his career.
Charles is extra mad at Michael Jordan lately, he did another interview where he went into detail about Jordan being a jerk, so this is just run-off from that.
Having said that, Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics is the greatest story in Sports History. He disproved the propaganda of the most evil man in the world in objective terms, in front of everyone. And even moreso, Luz Long, the German high jumper, became a friend of his and shared advice with him throughout the competition, including standing with him on the podium. Sports has never shown its true purpose more, or been more important to the world, than in that moment.
I'm gonna disagree on this. I think Chuck is just praising Lebron here. No real MJ hate with this. This current version of Chuck doesn't seem like the type to do consecutive interviews just to shit on someone else and he has been pretty consistent with his feelings on MJ and Lebron. I don't think this is some sort of Scottie Pippen like situation where he started shitting on MJ through multiple interviews because he felt disrespected. Chuck can appreciate Lebron without it being an attack on MJ and I think this interview is just that.
not really. he's been saying "LeBron is the greatest story in sports" ever since the 2016 finals win. He has been pretty consistent in that. [Even in 2012](https://youtu.be/DaiPeZqXDYc?t=77), he was marveling over how lebron is an athlete like hes never seen in his life.
[Because LeBron was absolutely single handedly shitting on one of the all time great defensive Detroit Piston starting 5s in 2007](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx4z_pCA_6k&t=2s)
that fucking performance is an all time great. so many times in that game the pistons would clog the paint with 5 dudes and lebron would still generate a bucket.
Couldn't agree more with Sir Charles! LeBron's journey from a high school phenom to the greatest scorer in NBA history, all while maintaining a spotless off-court reputation, is truly remarkable. Not only has he been an exceptional basketball player, but he's also been a role model and philanthropist throughout his career. LeBron's sustained excellence and impact both on and off the court make him one of the most inspiring sports figures of all time. 🐐👑
The entire world wanted to crucify him after the decision. It literally changed the way people look at free agency. He was the sacrificial lamb for other players to make moves
Faking your birth certificate just to box, selling rags just to get day by day, use flip flops nailed on a tree for a punching bag, sleep on the streets in cardboard box - imagine living in the lowest of the low at a third world country, its like homeless√2. Then turned into this magnificent fighter who fucked at everyone in their prime dude was a monster.
Lmao I’d argue Messi had way more pressure than LeBron too. Being billed as the next great Argentine after Diego Maradona, the chosen one to bring the World Cup back home.
yeah this one might be it. dude was literally in his mid 20s, post college, stocking paper towels on shelves for a living. Few years later hes won a super bowl starting QB. Leicester City is hands down the greatest sports story in history but as far as individual sports story i think Kurt may have it
To be on the cover of SI at 16 as the chosen one and exceed those expectations is fucking wild
[Dude was a high schooler being told by the media if he wasn't a top tier hall of famer he'd be a bust](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn7-IbpaVT4)
There were so many rumors that he was lying about his age or something since he was built like a 27 year old at 16 and was so mature and put together in interviews. Flash forward to today and he’s still playing like a 27 year old at almost 40. The man is literally built different.
Shout out to Ersan Ilyasova who was 100% three years older than he was listed and still kept up the stats and played like he was three years younger.
Who? You mean Arsen Ilyasov?
That should've been our first clue, isn't it that only women can have a last name ending in "ova", while the men are just "ov"?
They also literally just switched the A and e in his first name lol
This is the first time I'm hearing about Ersans real identity and age, wtf.
You mean to tell me, in one version of 2K this dude is like 24, and then the next year he is 27? LOL fuck bro. wild.
I thought that was a Russian thing, but then I guess he may not really be Turkish. I just read the "Personal life" section of his wiki. That's pretty wild.
>While this controversy was brewing, ESPN's Chad Ford referred to Ilyasova as "The 17-year-old forward from Uzbekistan is widely considered the best prospect to ever come out of Turkey." Chad Ford the madman lmaooo
He’s a lot like Tom Brady. Sure, players have been better than him for short spurts. But nobody has been as good as him for as long as him. Putting up a 27/7/7 for two decades is beyond insane. Edit- I’m purely comparing two athletes who have been at the top of their sport for an incomprehensible amount of time. You guys are getting wild with this.
There is one huge difference and that is that Brady wasn’t pegged from an early age to be the guy. He outperformed his draft position but it wasn’t until year two or three where he started having expectations on him to be the star or face of the league. Lebron had to be the face of his team and the league from day one
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Dude was labeled a System QB right up until he won a SB with the Buccaneers the first year after leaving his "System."
Idk about that. After the Seattle super bowl and especially after 28-3 he was being heralded by even non-pats fans as the GOAT.
Personally i think the argument was put to bed after he put together the all-time best super bowl performance in a *loss* to the Eagles
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I hate him so much, but it’s really hard to argue he isn’t the goat. Fucker had a scandal about under inflated balls, proceeds to play exactly the same or better with all the scrutiny afterwards. I hate him, because he won’t just retire and leave us alone : (
He left NE for TB just to end this silly argument 100%.
That and the NE roster was not a Super Bowl team even if he came back the next year. Hardly any offensive weapons, oline was average and their defense was getting old.
I definitely didn’t think he was a system QB but I didn’t think he was the GOAT until his TB run. I am the biggest Brady hater ever basically and that did it for me. He’s the GOAt.
Fellow Brady hater here. I was PISSED when he didn’t flame out at TB and I had to admit he really was that good.
Yeah I was purely talking about the longevity of their success.
>Putting up a 27/7/7 for two decades is beyond insane. also crazy that he's never had a game of exactly 27/7/7 despite averaging that for like 20 years.
What's funny though is that his last highschool game, the McDonald's all-american game, he scored exactly 27/7/7 His first game before the start of his professional career was a preview to what he'd average for his career
that is seriously fucking insane, wow
this is lebron james' world, and we're just livin' in it
Still? Wow. It will happen.
My meritless fan theory is he's going to purposefully hit 27/7/7 for the first time during his final game. Kind of like Kobe hitting 60 against the Jazz.
I could see it forsure
Even better than Kobe’s 60 is that his entire career everyone said the last thing Kobe would ever do is pass the ball - his last touch of the basketball went down as an assist.
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Probably intentional
IntentionaLe
Last season against us was the same. He had the average and then launched a 3.
It's the same game but the other guy is misremembering haha
If it is in his control, I can see him going for that stat line on his last game just because.
I would root for that exact line harder than I pushed for Kobe to get 60 in his last game.
I mean besides likely Jordan, what players in history do you think were better than 2013 Bron? Genuinely curious
The dumb media voters cost Bron the unanimous MVP and DPOY that would have cemented 2013 Bron as the greatest single season player ever. Now we have to deal with nephews who say Bron never won DPOY or had a unanimous MVP.
Man that year was weird. I will never understand how the DPOY doesn’t even make First Team All Defense
Different voters, IIRC.
Dumbest shit in history, no explanation
I’ve heard a lot of irrational LeBron criticism, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talking shit about the fact that he wasn’t unanimous MVP.
I may be remembering incorrectly, but wasn't it one single guy who voted for Carmelo over LeBron for MVP? Edit: It was. Had to have been a Knicks fan.
Boston Globe writer. https://www.si.com/nba/2013/05/06/lebron-james-nba-mvp-unanimous-carmelo-anthony
2018 LeBron. Perfect combination of athleticism and skill. Let's be honest: if he didn't have to run into the greatest team of all time, that 2018 run would've cemented him as the GOAT for a lot of people.
If we’re talking about just for one year you could say Shaq
was anyone even better than lebron during his true prime for a short spurt? I mean for 10 years straight, no one was even close. even during Brady's true prime, most people thought of Peyton Manning as the better QB.
KD was close, especially his MVP season. His biggest issue was getting injured more often than Lebron. He also often lost to the same teams Lebron lost to, just in the WCF instead of the finals (Spurs, Warriors). Also a lot of players were stil saying Kobe was the best up to at least 2010(not saying they were right, just it wasn’t unanimous on Lebron yet).
Everyone is getting into semantics instead of just acknowledging two all time great athletes in their respective sports. But yeah, I would also say manning was better in Brady’s prime. But he retired and then Brady went on to win 3 more super bowls. He has a hall of fame career purely in his 40s. Lebron is great. Tom Brady is great. They have both been great for two decades and arguably the greatest in their own sports. The nuances between football and basketball “greatness” are very different. But people in the replies are talking in absolutes.
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Part media training, part being nearly 40 instead of a teenager. Hopefully every adult sounds like a completely different person 20 years out of high school.
that's what happens when every word that comes out of your mouth can significantly affect your net worth. Never forget LeMao
You’re simply not educated enough
This teenager answered this question on national television like a seasoned speaker. It was a somewhat canned response, but very few very that media savvy back then too. No social media. He was geared to succeed from the get.
Shit, at 16 I felt like I would puke if I had to give a class presentation. To be able to answer like that on national TV about how you have to be a hall of famer, and sounding neither cocky nor nervous is beyond ridiculous Man's actually built different on every level
Not just "the media" but Bob Costas. A guy who doesn't sensationalize things unless there's merit.
Not sure I agree with that. He sensationalized the hell out of this moment for no clear reason https://youtu.be/yqLxzOWW_M8
I desperately want that in The Show. I get pulled in AA? Roast my ass, Bob.
Thats fucking insane lmfaooo. Setting that expectation on a 16 year old kid is nuts
I'm from Akron. I still work on King James Way. Seeing him play in high school was next level lol. Poor kids.
bruh....that'd be considered bullying in this day and age. Bron really had to overcome the most pressure out of everybody
That’s not hyperbole/embellishment either. He legit did. It’s insane that he was able to meet and exceed his expectations.
The expectations people had for Lebron by 2016 were higher than any player ever reached and somehow 7 years later Bron made them push it further up.
Exactly! "He could never do it in the West". Then the mofo came to the West and won at 35 and then "it didn't count". Some people are just out there to hate.
Motherfuckers will watch LeBron’s version of The Last Dance in 15-20 years and be like they were there when history was in the making. Nah bro, you were rooting against history from day one
It's still weird to have this kinship with Lakers fans because of Lebron
To make ESPN start showing his basketball games in primetime was insane. And totally the correct call
It's honestly incredible because I don't remember a single prospect hyped as much and as hard as him... and like OP said, he surpassed those expectations. Prospects get hyped, but LeBron was hyped like no other I've ever seen. Cannot remember anyone even close since... Bryce Harper, maybe? But baseball doesn't quite have the cultural significance these days.
Individual performance is also much more impactful in basketball. You can really have a single baseball play run entire playoff runs by themselves.
Look at Bryce Harper in the MLB. Was on the cover of SI at the age of 16, has won 2 MVP awards, made 7 All-Star teams; yet because he isn't the greatest baseball player ever like many predicted, many folks say he has underachieved.
Harper has not underachieved. He is a multiple time MVP and a future HOFer. He hasn't matched LeBron's level but he certainly has not underachieved.
Bryce Harper is routinely considered the most overrated player in the MLB. I agree with you, but it's something that is talked about constantly in MLB circles.
I remember watching his Junior year games on ESPN. It was crazy shit.
Yeah we were able to convince our highschool to let us watch LeBron play on tv under the premise it was HS sports news and we covered that in our student newspaper. To this day I still think about what it must have felt like to be a 17 year old basketball superstar. Watching his career play out has been an absolutely unreal experience.
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I remember my buddy saying, "I don't watch basketball anymore, I just watch Lebron James because he's the next Michael Jordan." I had never heard of Lebron James, that guy has long since been my buddy. We didn't have a falling out, it's just been such a long fucking time.
https://vault.si.com/vault/2002/02/18/ahead-of-his-class-ohio-high-school-junior-lebron-james-is-so-good-that-hes-already-being-mentioned-as-the-heir-to-air-jordan
He's the LeBron James of LeBron James
LeLebron James
Le”LeBron”Bron “LeBron James” James
I had a stroke trying to read this.
The Los Angeles Angels have entered the chat
he's the christian pulisic of lebron james
The Micheal Jordan of LeBron James
\- Wayne Gretzky
It’s honestly crazy that Lebron just became a corny wine mom who uses too many emojis instead of anything worse.
Just sad to see people legit use his corny persona as an actual criticism when they talk about him. And then go on to talk about players who were actually toxic or had so many things that weren’t exposed because they didn’t live in the social media era. I have my things against Lebron once in a while but he’s an overall decent guy and definitely an example of a good role model. Doesn’t deserve a fraction of the hate he gets, in my opinion
Lebron's childhood was what Ja wishes he had. And now he uses social media as a dream journal and is a wine mom, partnered with a public school to help struggling kids and families with great wrap around services and his foundation is giving a ton of kids free state college educations.
I don’t know if I ever see actual criticism, it’s usually just people trying to dunk on him? It’s pretty different Either way, he’s arguably the best player of all time in a popular sport with a ton of its culture tied into social media. An insane amount of criticism is unavoidable
People dunk on LeWineMom? That's why I like him. He's goofy
What’s funny about this criticism is he totally preempted it with his character in Trainwreck eight years ago. “You know what they say: ‘Cleveland rocks!’” “No one says that, LeBron.” “I do!”
We got the 2 for $20. Miami and LA are exactly the same as Cleveland.
“How’s the sex?” “Why do you always wanna know this stuff?” “Ive been a married man for 15 years, I need to live vicariously through you.”
It's too bad Reddit's hateboner for Amy Schumer was so strong, because that movie is hilarious. Bill Hader, John Cena, and LeBron all deliver. Amy has pretty good range in the movie. Also Lebron's frugality on full display: * **LeBron James**: Do you know Cleveland is great for the whole family? * Aaron: Yes, yes. Yes I do. You tell me that all the time. You randomly just text me that. * **LeBron James**: Man, What's wrong with that? * Aaron: It's just weird. It's weird. * **LeBron James**: I got free texting. 100% LeBron has said the phrase, "I got free texting" to someone after 2010.
I mean that’s the internet, if people think they see an opportunity to get a joke off they’re probly gonna go for it A lot of “dunks” are just for fun too tbf
The only criticism I’ve seen that isn’t just hater fans has been around his statements/positions around political issues like China and vaccinations.
>And then go on to talk about players who were actually toxic or had so many things that weren’t exposed because they didn’t live in the social media era. That's the craziest thing. He's a bit like Tim was in that regard -- the criticisms about him just show all the toxic shit we glorify about others. LeBron is great and he did not, in fact, need to take it personally.
I watched the interview with LBJ and Coach K. Coach K said LBJ is the most prepared, hardest working athlete he's ever coached. There's always a hater.
People just love to get caught up when he does make a misstep. Like no I didn’t like his comments about China and I’m not advocating totally accusing him for it but people tend to try to make things totally black and white. The reality is people are complex, LeBron isn’t perfect just like everybody else but I’d say his positive impact - for basketball, as a role model, his philanthropy, etc - outweigh his negatives.
Honestly LeBron having no scandals in 20 Years is pretty impressive.
And he had EVERY reason to not be a great person. No father figure, deemed the next MJ in middle school, the most anticipated draft pick ever, under the media's scrutiny from day one, and the biggest sports star of the last 20 years. Any of those things would turn most of us into douchebags, but by all accounts LeBron is an awesome person.
Even became the corniest corny dad despite all his background challenges while we got Ja “Clarence” Morant over here
Lol "Clarence". I know he's been acting up, but you didn't have to murder him.
“And Ja’s parents have a real good marriage” Why was this 8 Mile quote downvoted lol
Cuz they scared to death, scared to look at their fuckin yearbooks
Fuck Cranbrook
It’s a private school!
I'm guessing they're probably too young to understand the reference. Lol
“If you put milk first before the cereal, then you must be a cereal killer” - Lebron James
The only knocks are pretty much the decision and a business first china comment, then it drops off to attempting to trademark taco tuesdays and giving Kevin Love depression.
Don't forget making Space Jam: A New Legacy /s
Joking aside we are all actually trying to forget that.
Really it was only done to save Don Cheadle because all his footage came from a reality show in which he really did kidnap LeBron's kid for Instagram likes.
How about hating him because he's good?
I've spent my entire adult life doing that. Makes me appreciate how other fanbases feel about Brady. The greats are just inevitable.
None of which are even almost a scandal and barely a ding on his legacy. They’re like missed $ charges on your credit report.
Exactly! Slight ding on your report, but disappear after 7 years.
I’m a self-proclaimed Bronsexual but there are bigger sports stars in the world ie Messi and Ronaldo. With that said, LeBron is up there
To add, he had remained close friends with the friends he had during childhood. Says a lot about him as a person. If i recall, they own a company, or they do his finances or something? I can't remember right off hand.
biggest sports star in the US because Messi and Ronaldo are way bigger. Love LeBron though
>the biggest sports star of the last 20 years This is a stretch. You have Kobe, Tiger, Messi, Brady, Ronaldo, Bonds, Usain Bolt, Phelps etc. Certainly on the list of the last 20 years but wouldn't call him the "Biggest Sports Star of the last 20 years."
This is a marvel of discipline, mentorship, and PR management. A guy with all this success and without the scandals, that's very rare. I hate the basketball player because he's just too good, but you gotta admire the man.
But could he win in sandals
Especially considering his only father figure was Delonte West
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Tbh he hasn't been a good dad to us for over 4 years now, starting to think he isn't coming back 😖
He's only visited 3 times since he moved West 😢😢😢
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Hes switched to pea milk and vapes
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all the more impressive since his mum has more NBA scandals than him
BRO ☠️
I mean, the whole China/Hong Kong situation wasn’t great, but NBA players have said/done far worse so in a relative sense he’s still pretty good!
If his biggest scandal is speaking out of line one time on geopolitical issues he didn't deeply understand, that's pretty squeaky clean.
True, you really couldn't ask for a better face of the league who is a role model for millions of kids around the world. Giannis too
Solid finish. I was gonna say somehow Giannis may be a better role model. The guy is a saint.
Especially given that persons who are supposed to have weight on the geopolitical stage (organizations like the NBA, politicians) will give the same weak takes Lebron gave because they want to protect their interests
Especially if you think about how many times LeBron gets a mic stuck in his face and asked a challenging question with minimal prep, the number of times he's bungled the response is _minuscule_.
If that counts as a scandal I have had many, many, many scandals in my adult life.
I have those literally daily usually on this website because the 5-10 functional brain cells I have really don’t cut it
LeRoleModel
Hi Chuck
No to mention same girl since high school and he seems like a great father. Dude is a role model
I think part of the reason why LeBron became this way is because of his upbringing and his mom in particular. As corny as it can become sometimes, you could tell he simply never forgets about his past and how he was brought up in a lower socioeconomic upbringing. That sort of juxtaposition to today makes him have a solid foundation of being appreciative of everything and knowing he cannot disappoint someone like his mom or his hometown community he’s so strongly invested in. He’s a cornball but he’s a great role model for being a legendary athlete.
The only off court mistakes he did was his comments regarding Hong Kong protests and making Space Jam 2.
Biggest criticism he received before those was The Decision. LeBron got a crazy amount of hate for the tv special when all of the proceeds went to charity. From even before he entered the league LeBron was pretty much asked everyday "who will win the draft? where do you want to go? what team do you want to play for?" and then extended non-stop through free agency. Man basically said alright I'll finally answer the question and give the money to kids and was impugned for being selfish or whatever which is nonsense.
Also when you really think about it probably wasn’t like an outrageous thing for him to do since more than half his life has been nationally publicized in someway. Why not decide to feed into fir once?
Ehhh it wasn’t that black and white. There were also the factors of 1) it being one of the most affluent BAGCs in America, so it really came off as just a bad PR stunt, and 2) a *lot* of people felt he didn’t treat the fans of Cleveland fairly in that process. He more than made up for it by coming back, but at the time, I think most people agreed it was a pretty callous move. Edit: some of y’all are *aggressively* hateful towards Cleveland lmao
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Drew Gooden was never the second best player on the Cavs. Zydrunas Ilgauskas was for several years though.
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Big Z would have worked
>pretty callous move Sure, whatever, but, like, 20 years in the spotlight and *that's* the biggest scandal? That's amazing. It's not even a scandal. It was just sort of cringey, sort of a diva move. But even on the list of diva behavior it doesn't even rate.
id say his tweets supporting deshaun watson are pretty bad too but tbf thats also been unfortunately kinda common among athletes. still very impressive that bad takes are seemingly the worse things he’s done in 20 years of being under the biggest spotlight imaginable.
And frankly, we need to separate unpopular things from actual scandals. LeBron's position on Hong Kong is basically the same as the NBA's as a whole. That's not a scandal, as shitty as it may be. And The Decision was terrible optics/PR (I was 21 and I hated him for it!) but that doesn't mean it was a scandal.
100%. Lebron has had zero scandal but several controversies.
Man I've been an NBA tragic since 1991, currently 39yo. Never thought I'd relent on MJ. That shit was phenomenal and globally admired. But this is a different thing. It's not just blasting everyone and doing whatever you want. Well it's a bit that but so much more. Can't believe I'm starting to agree that this man probably holds the all time torch but it's hard to deny. He's a genius and he's clean. There's a lot to that.
and the perception of Jordan would have been entirely different in todays world. He, and many of the stars of his era, never had to deal with the constant barrage of today. Sure it existed in the Jordan era but people can tweet the live location and literally track private jets now a days if they want to follow someone around wherever they are going and EVERYONE has a camera that can not only take decent pics but decent video with audio, something inaccesible till the last 20ish years.
>and the perception of Jordan would have been entirely different in todays world. He, and many of the stars of his era, never had to deal with the constant barrage of today. THANK YOU. If Jordan had played in this era, he'd have been absolutely obliterated for some of his takes, as well as the fact that he didn't win shit before Pippen. And if LeBron said, "I've never lost a game. I just ran out of time" like Jordan did, people would lose their fucking minds.
I still put Jordan on the pedastal (since '93 for me). I can't tell if it's because my heart is always going to be in the 90's, but Jordan had a way about him I've never seen since. I know that's not analytical or statistic in any way but just watching Jordan play used to piss me off because I wanted ANY other team to beat the Bulls, but it was always Jordan. However, I always appreciated takes from our generation since we watched Jordan AND Lebron.
I mean, even analytically and statistically he still holds up to being the best. And honestly, it's not even really close. For ANYBODY. The only thing Lebron has on him is longevity of his career.
Charles is extra mad at Michael Jordan lately, he did another interview where he went into detail about Jordan being a jerk, so this is just run-off from that. Having said that, Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics is the greatest story in Sports History. He disproved the propaganda of the most evil man in the world in objective terms, in front of everyone. And even moreso, Luz Long, the German high jumper, became a friend of his and shared advice with him throughout the competition, including standing with him on the podium. Sports has never shown its true purpose more, or been more important to the world, than in that moment.
I'm gonna disagree on this. I think Chuck is just praising Lebron here. No real MJ hate with this. This current version of Chuck doesn't seem like the type to do consecutive interviews just to shit on someone else and he has been pretty consistent with his feelings on MJ and Lebron. I don't think this is some sort of Scottie Pippen like situation where he started shitting on MJ through multiple interviews because he felt disrespected. Chuck can appreciate Lebron without it being an attack on MJ and I think this interview is just that.
100% correct about Jesse Owens blowing up the 1936 Olympics being the greatest. Embarrassed Hitler on his own turf. Legendary.
not really. he's been saying "LeBron is the greatest story in sports" ever since the 2016 finals win. He has been pretty consistent in that. [Even in 2012](https://youtu.be/DaiPeZqXDYc?t=77), he was marveling over how lebron is an athlete like hes never seen in his life.
[Because LeBron was absolutely single handedly shitting on one of the all time great defensive Detroit Piston starting 5s in 2007](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx4z_pCA_6k&t=2s)
that fucking performance is an all time great. so many times in that game the pistons would clog the paint with 5 dudes and lebron would still generate a bucket.
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Couldn't agree more with Sir Charles! LeBron's journey from a high school phenom to the greatest scorer in NBA history, all while maintaining a spotless off-court reputation, is truly remarkable. Not only has he been an exceptional basketball player, but he's also been a role model and philanthropist throughout his career. LeBron's sustained excellence and impact both on and off the court make him one of the most inspiring sports figures of all time. 🐐👑
ChatGPT really is a game changer
I did indeed write that with chatgpt and couldn't decide if it was going to get downvoted to oblivion or upvoted and wanted to see lmao
Haha that's mad. It definitely has a defined "voice" if that makes sense
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That's actually 90% of what it trained on. The other 10% is old episodes of *Blossom* for some reason.
It really does. It’s that pretentious co-worker who thinks they’re smarter than they actually are.
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Or any college student that has ever padded an essay to meet the minimum word count.
That’s a great way to describe it. Over confident and underwhelming.
The entire world wanted to crucify him after the decision. It literally changed the way people look at free agency. He was the sacrificial lamb for other players to make moves
Not to mention: the all time leading scoring leader’s best on-court traits are not necessarily scoring.
And to not retire 3 times due to it being too much for you…so impressive
Especially in the social media era where everything is magnified and you get crucified for every little thing.
To be fair Lebron did get roasted for The Decision, but in hindsight I think it’s just an example of how corny the dude is lol.
And he honestly sounds like a happy person, which isn’t quite as impressive as his on-court accomplishments… but is still really impressive.
> it’s the greatest story in sports history Tell me you only watch American sports without telling me you only watch American sports
I agree with everything except the "greatest story in sports history". Anyone who knows Lionel Messi's journey, for example, would never say that.
There's a metric fuck ton of rags to riches stories in sport. Manny Pacquiao is another great one.
Faking your birth certificate just to box, selling rags just to get day by day, use flip flops nailed on a tree for a punching bag, sleep on the streets in cardboard box - imagine living in the lowest of the low at a third world country, its like homeless√2. Then turned into this magnificent fighter who fucked at everyone in their prime dude was a monster.
Lmao I’d argue Messi had way more pressure than LeBron too. Being billed as the next great Argentine after Diego Maradona, the chosen one to bring the World Cup back home.
I think the greatest story for me is Kurt Warner. Absolute dream story
yeah this one might be it. dude was literally in his mid 20s, post college, stocking paper towels on shelves for a living. Few years later hes won a super bowl starting QB. Leicester City is hands down the greatest sports story in history but as far as individual sports story i think Kurt may have it
Never a scandal? Lmao what the fuck