Actually, Being the Face of the NBA Ain't Half Bad

Not that I would know

I’ve always liked LeBron. I have generally rooted for his success over the years. Sure, he’s more than a little corny, and dramatic in the way that a lot of uber-celebrities tend to be, but you could do a whole lot worse as role models for the kids go. He seems like a pretty nice guy, and I’ll forever be in awe of what is, to my mind, his crowning achievement: being anointed as the chosen one as a straight-up teenager and somehow exceeding those lofty expectations over what is now a 22-year career.

With that all said, he does and says a lot of stuff that I don’t agree with. The latest such example is his take on negativity around the NBA. In response to comments made by Anthony Edwards over All-Star Weekend (which, lol) about his own potential to take up the mantle as the face of the league, James said the following:

"I mean, it's unfortunate but like .... Why do you want to be the face of the league when all the people that cover our game and talk about our game on a day-to-day basis shit on everybody? To have that responsibility, it's just weird. It's weird energy."

In case this wasn’t clear, LeBron knows more than just about any of us ever will about what that really amounts to in terms of impact on a person’s life. But the takeaway here is… what, exactly? You shouldn’t want to be a famous basketball player because it will bring you criticism? I’m confused.

And it isn’t lost on me, for what it’s worth, that the initial comments came during NBA All-Star Weekend, the beloved annual tradition in which the world’s best players gather to compete fuck around on live television in the league’s highest-profile event following the end of the NFL season.

So yeah, maybe guys are feeling a little more sensitive that time of year. They do get dragged for not trying. From where I’m standing though, that’s largely on them, no?

Backing up, there are a few more distinctions to make here. First, there’s a valid point to be made about negativity around the NBA as a sport. We see that regularly: all the discourse around teams shooting too many threes and the handwringing over the viewership numbers. (Which, let it be said, are valid points. But we digress.) As long as I can remember watching pro basketball, I’ve heard people say how no one plays defense anymore.

This, like the first two complaints, comes back to this old heads vs. new kids schism that seems to uniquely afflict basketball. We get bits and pieces of this in other sports, but I think it’s fair to say that basketball has a particular obsession with comparing one era to another. Much of that is related to the GOAT debate that has defined much of LeBron’s late career. Chasing ghosts, all that.

And again, for what it’s worth, don’t you dare try and tell me that LeBron didn’t opt in to that. I find it very hard to believe that he did not in fact actively pursue becoming the face of the league, nebulous as that distinction is. And guess what! It worked.

So to me, there’s a piece of this that is more than a little self-serving. I haven’t seen this suggested elsewhere, so I’m probably late to this, but have we considered that this might be the teensiest bit sub-tweety? Is this actually supportive of Anthony Edwards and his apparent willingness to eschew the (don’t) FOTL mantle? Or is this LeBron saying: there aren’t many guys who can handle what I handle, and Ant might not be one of them?

I don’t know. That’s probably reading too far in. And I for one can’t imagine the level of scrutiny that is directed at LeBron or any other pro athlete of his stature, day in, day out. Much of that is just our information environment, where anyone with a social media handle can log in to Instagram and see thousands of strangers cursing their family. That quickly blots out the two commenters who are telling them “Good game last night!”

So I continue to take seriously what the NBA’s commissioner, Adam Silver, said years ago when he described how many of the league’s most successful players were just not very happy people. When hate, hate, hate, is most of what these guys are getting every time they check their phones — and they’re doing this in the locker room at halftime, folks, checkin’ the ol’ mentions — then I have no trouble understanding how guys might end up discouraged. Despite, y’know, getting paid tens of millions of dollars to play a sport. We shouldn’t overlook that, but to some extent I do get it.

However! Big ol’ however. That is still not the same thing as the media coverage of the league, which is what LeBron was specifically calling out. And maybe I’m just sensitive about this, which is always a possibility, but ‘the media’ seems to be an ill-suited target for that criticism.

I think it’s fair to say that he’s referring to people like Stephen A. Smith and the Inside the NBA crew, primarily Shaq and Chuck. These are people who do criticize the league and its stars. The latter two aren’t always evenhanded about that, and the former is a (don’t) takesmith whose entire career has been predicated on finding things to argue about.

And yes, those guys are among the most prominent voices covering the sport, so this is not to minimize their impact on the discourse or whatever. But LeBron did say “all the people who cover our game,” which is where I start to question whether he’s watching the same basketball media that I am.

Needless to say, much as I admire the sunny outlook, I don’t entirely agree with the Kenny Beecham stance. The whole Enjoy Basketball ethos, for those who aren’t familiar, is that basketball coverage doesn’t have enough positivity to it. And maybe I’m just a grouch, but I kinda think that’s just wrong?

I’m sure some of you will have listened to Simmons and Russillo talking about this last weekend, which I’d encourage you to listen to for a look back on how negative the press coverage of the league and its stars has been in the past. The difference today is that, since a bunch of idiots online, most of whom are telling you that you suck, are always right there on your phone, it’s harder to escape. Guys like MJ and Kobe — who, people forget, were ruthlessly criticized in their day — could just choose not to read the paper that day. They had an easier time of blocking out the noise.

That is not to say, however, that they had an easier time with reporters. Because they didn’t. Both, before winning enough to quiet these criticisms, were labeled as ball hogs and locker room cancers who cared more about winning scoring titles than actual titles. They took a ton of heat.

And that’s just those guys. We can do down the list, from Dirk and KG to Shaq and Barkley themselves. Because believe you me, there is absolutely nothing new about taking heat in the NBA for not winning titles. Barkley still gets that. We’ve been doing the #ringz thing for a long time, and believe it or not, that heat used to be worse than it is today in the press corps.

I happen to think most of the media is actually quite deferent to LeBron, including the guys he appears to be calling out. Maybe you guys can find some examples of genuinely disrespectful coverage by those three or others — there must be something, I’m not naive to that — but what I recall seeing more of than anything else are discussions as to whether LeBron is the best basketball player ever. If some of those guys land on no, he’s actually only the second best basketball player ever, am I supposed to think they’ve crossed a line? Please.

Again, I will underline the simple fact that online hate is more prominent and all-encompassing than it ever used to be. That sucks for everyone, and especially these guys. I just don’t think that means players are entitled to a right not to be criticized in public.

Analysis is allowed to be critical. When it isn’t, it ceases to be analysis and turns instead into basketball propaganda. And sometimes, when I hear stuff like this, I wonder whether that’s what a lot of NBA stars — including, yes, the face of the league — wish they got more of.

⚾ Who told Travis Hunter that playing receiver and cornerback was harder than pitching and hitting? That’s outlandish. There’s a reason we’ve seen a number of football players — including, memorably, his coach Deion Sanders — do the Travis Hunter thing and no one for a century do the Shohei Ohtani thing. Stop with that.

🏈 Is it just me, or is this a pretty strong pass rusher market? You’ve got guys like Myles Garrett and Trey Hendrickson open for trades, on top of decorated dudes like Khalil Mack, Josh Sweat, and now Joey Bosa in free agency.

📺 The aforementioned Stephen A. Smith reportedly has a $100M+ five-year contract extension on the table with ESPN, which happens to exceed the $85M deal of the same length for Pat McAfee. Hm. The battle at the Worldwide Leader continues.

🏎️ NASCAR is countersuing Michael Jordan’s racing team, 23XI Racing, now accusing them of violating federal antitrust law in their attempts to demand better terms for a racing charter. Another hm. I’ll be keeping an eye on how that one plays out.