Secure Immaturity

I’ve been absent a lot lately so my updates have been few and far between so apologies. Anyways, this whole LeBron James thing is a sham of sports. But instead of going into specifics here and ranting all day, I’m going to post something I wrote back in December 2009 when I was ALL ALONE in the world of LeBron hatred. From my review of The Art of a Beautiful Game:

Now we’ll come to the complaint. Notice I said complaint and not complaints. The book is near perfect but loses an entire star on a five-star rating system due to the final analysis on LeBron James. Before I go off, the book starts off by profiling Kobe Bryant and his desire to win. What I like about the opening chapter is that Ballard doesn’t take a point of view on Kobe personally. He mentions positives and negatives, sure, but Ballard’s point is to show a top athlete (the best active player in his chosen sport) wanting and willing to win at any physical/mental cost. The point is made effortlessly by Ballard’s objective and thorough ‘reporting’, as it were.

But in the end, Ballard becomes ‘LeBron Back Patter #9000 by examining James and how great he is. I don’t want to rip on Ballard here because, well, he did a great job with the book, but he just ends so poorly I feel like calling him Rocco. He loses all perspective and goes into fan mode (he put LeBron’s fucking picture on the cover for god’s sake). Here is where I tangent: I dislike LeBron James immensely.

One thing my dad always taught me, especially in the sports world, was respect, loyalty, and heart. I have seen LeBron display none of these qualities. Raw talent and skills can say a lot and even place someone in the Hall of Fame, but I need all these qualities to apply as well as this little thing called a championship ring. In the football world, my all-time favorite QB was Trent Dilfer. Many of you may laugh but the guy was respectful and kind, played with the most heart I’ve ever seen in an athlete, not to mention loyalty (look at the teams he played for in Tampa and look at any video of his blood-bumping effort) and won a ring with the Ravens (fully deserved). The fact that so many, Ballard included at the end of his book, give LeBron so much respect and worship, despite the fact that he shows no respect to the game or the players he plays against (or with for that matter), and displays his ‘heart’ like a well written script and doesn’t have an NBA Finals win, let alone a ring, is mind boggling.

Now, as you may have ascertained, I am an Orlando Magic fan. When LeBron didn’t shake any one’s hands when he was soundly defeated by Howard and my Magic in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals and then continued to pout by not addressing the media and supporting his teammates, I realized how arrogant and selfish the kid is. . .not to mention his lack of respect for the victors and even his own teammates. To him, a ring is destined to him but, to us and the world, it is not yet earned by any stretch of the imagination. And his loyalty is a joke. . .he’s leaving his fans in the air by playing media games with all his Yankee caps and such. I dislike him immensely. . .’nuff said*. . .so reading even 10 pages of his exploits and how perfect and legendary he is just put me off to the extreme. If Ballard ever reads this. . .I ain’t hating on you brother. I’m just sick of the love when it hasn’t been earned yet and, since your book was about the love of the game and the will to win (it was your lead-off story), how could you put LeBron on the cover and glorify his clear failures? Oh well. . .I’ll never know.

I Told You So.