Why do NBA legends love hating on LeBron?
OPINION - So is this treatment of James more of a generational thing or genuine professional jealousy?...
The Miami Heat’s LeBron James has moved on from the NBA Finals defeat to the Dallas Mavericks earlier this summer. He’s tried to mend fences in the wake of his “Decision” to leave Cleveland for Miami by continuing youth basketball programs in his native Ohio. Even while entrenched in what is shaping up to be a long and potentially damaging lockout James has traveled across the country — part of an All-Star contingent that looks to cure the basketball jones of millions of NBA fans who hope that at some point there is a season. He’s even laughed at himself in a McDonald’s commercial that questions the chances of him winning multiple championships one of the running jokes since the Finals loss.
One thing that James hasn’t been able to shake is the piling on of former NBA stars, the most recent being former LA Lakers star Magic Johnson who have taken the liberty to take unprovoked shots at James for leaving Cleveland for Miami.
“There will always be great players in basketball. There’s always going to be guys who win championships in the NBA. Except LeBron.” said Johnson to roars of laughter while speaking to a group in Albany, New York last week, Johnson tried to soften the blow by adding, “I love the young man though. I know he’s going to get better this year in the fourth quarter.”
This is the same Magic Johnson that was embroiled in controversy in 1981 after winning his first NBA championship the season before when he was at the center of the firing of coach Paul Westhead. Westhead would be replaced by Pat Riley who with Johnson at the helm would lead the Lakers to four more NBA titles in the 80s.
Johnson would shock the world a decade late with the announcement that his promiscuous lifestyle had contracted him the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Thankfully, Johnson has thus far led a normal and healthy life showing no ill effects of the disease.
By this time Johnson had joined the likes of Charles Barkley and James idol Michael Jordan, former players who have chosen to lay a hard foul on James when it comes to his Decision and lack of commitment to the Cleveland Cavaliers organization. James a two-time NBA MVP left Cleveland to join Dwayne Wade in Miami, Toronto Raptors center Chris Bosh would later follow. Jordan who defeated both Barkley and Johnson at some point on his way to six NBA titles said that he would rather beat them than join them.
“There’s no way, with hindsight, I would’ve ever called up Larry, called up Magic and said, ‘Hey, look, let’s get together and play on one team. But that’s…things are different. I can’t say that’s a bad thing. It’s an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys,” Michael Jordan said.
Jordan, once established was one of the game’s great manipulators. Can anyone dispute the fact that Jordan had a say in what players joined the Bulls in the midst of their title runs? And if you don’t think that Jordan’s influence was present in the selection in the selection of the original Dream Team just ask anyone if John Stockton really deserved that spot over Isaiah Thomas. But to understand that you would need to know the history between Thomas and Jordan.
Charles Barkley, one of the most beloved, yet controversial players in NBA history also chimed in.
“Mike and I are in 100 percent agreement on this. If you’re the two-time defending NBA MVP, you don’t leave anywhere. They come to you. That’s ridiculous. I like LeBron. He’s a great player. But I don’t think in the history of sports you can find a two-time defending MVP leaving to go play with other people.”
Barkley was a league MVP after the 1993 season with the Phoenix Suns after he all but begged the Sixers to trade him while he collected mug shots like offensive rebounds. The beefy power forward would later talk his way out of Phoenix and join the Houston Rockets who were already stacked with future Hall of Famers Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon and Scottie Pippen.
So is this treatment of James more of a generational thing or genuine professional jealousy? It took the stoic Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sometime to warm-up to the charismatic and outgoing Johnson. Jordan came into his first All-Star weekend the target of a “freeze out” from other NBA players that was supposedly conspired and led by Detroit Pistons star Isaiah Thomas. Both Johnson and Jordan have tried to reign in Barkley who has tossed fans through windows, been caught speeding and has been in a barfight or three.
James, who wasn’t even born when Barkley and Jordan were drafted in 1984 steered clear of the police blotter, but throw in the Decision and the Finals loss and he catches hell in the court of public opinion.
Could it be the money that James is making? Barkley, Johnson and Jordan would be worth an astronomical amount in today’s NBA, but the three players combined would struggle to equal James salary for one season. It can be honestly stated that the three have made more money in their post NBA careers while James is more marketable than anyone but Jordan at age 26. James move, considered controversial was in all respects a business decision, one that he was within his rights as a player to make.
LeBron James is going to carve his own niche in NBA history and like Barkley, Johnson and Jordan, he’ll have a story to tell.
