Older White Guys Know What's Best For LeBron
Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 11:56PM 
Middle-Aged Writers
Need To Stop Posing
By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season
Aahhh, to be 25. Most have been out of school for a few years -- or in my case, a few months -- some have already earned a promotion or two at work, others are still trying to get a foot in the door, and still others are tending bar in New York or Los Angeles waiting for agency calls about the next audition.
Whatever the goal, 25 is a great age to be working toward it. You're old enough to be smart enough, but you're young enough to still have everything in front of you. At the very worst, you can still live cheaply with mom and dad while you get your situation sorted, and then go confidently in the direction of those dreams.*
+ TELEVISION: How ESPN Ruined The Cavs-Celtics Series
+ LEBRON JAMES: How Great Is He?
+ WHO'S BETTER: Kobe Or LeBron?
You've got friends aplenty and perhaps a healthy social life. You hit the bars with the fellas on Fridays and take out that pretty girl on Saturdays. Life is largely care free.
But what if your name happens to be LeBron James? What was Friday night like for him, just 24 hours after his season and perhaps his career in Cleveland ended? While most of us don't have any idea how he kicked off his weekend, the entire sports world seems to know what will be best for him come July 1.
A quick Google News search of "LeBron James" turned up 11.1 million results, the most recent of which was a Tim Cowlishaw column headlined, "What Exactly Is LeBron James The King Of?"
What I absolutely hate about sportswriters is their ugly habit of building people up only to tear them down without any regard for the fact that they were the ones who slid in the pedestal in the first place. Am I the only one who sees the joke, in this case at least, isn't on LeBron James but on Tim Cowlishaw?
What's even more ridiculous than the Cowlishaw piece -- and I typically like his columns and think he's usually the most logical of the "Around The Horn" gang -- is that there are plenty other middle-aged white men who seem to think they know what's best for a 25-year-old black superstar athlete whose currently facing a decision unlike any these sportswriters have had to make in their professional lives. And of the biggest decisions these guys have had to make, none has done it under the microscope by which King James has found his every move and syllable examined for the better part of a decade.
I'm obviously aware the role of a sports columnist is to write about what people want to read about, and if you can present your opinion in a way that elicits debate (read: sells papers or online subscriptions or at least generates page views) then you've done that job well.
By participating in the LBJ conversation on Twitter for most of the last week, I was reminded how many LeBron haters are out there. Is it because he operates dog-fighting rings or sexually assaults teenage girls or simply possesses an ornery personality like some of his colleagues? None of the above. Shoot, he doesn't even taunt his opponents.
The hate stems from his gift, his basketball greatness that causes the very writers who cover him to do what they do with all larger-than-life icons: they saturated us with a new definition of hyperbole.
And if the media thinks that's what its readers and viewers want, then I can stomach such overkill for the most part. But maybe the language these guys use could sound a little less sanctimonious. Instead of "he should do this," perhaps try "he could do that." Why would anyone other than LeBron claim to know what's best for him?
In the same breath that writers acknowledge LBJ's quest to further his global brand and become a post-career billionaire businessman, they criticize the absence of rage in his post-game press conferences after the Game 5 and Game 6 losses. "I didn't see any fire from him. He should have been mad as hell," I heard from a white TV analyst in his 50s the other day. "He just doesn't get it."
No, sir, you and your colleagues might be the ones who don't get it. You want a pro athlete half of your age, a young celebrity who's led a life nothing like yours, to react to losing a sporting contest the way you think you would.
The reality is that while we can have a good time speculating with friends over beers what we'd do if we won the lottery or if Charlize Theron walked into the bar, but none of us has any idea what it's like to be one of the most recognized superstar athletes on the planet. We surely don't know how we'd have reacted after those last two games against Boston, and we're definitely clueless about what will happen on or shortly after July 1.
Write about his game all you want, talk about what NBA insiders will be telling you all summer, but stop pretending to know what's going on inside the mind of a man you will never ever be.
(* = paraphrasing Thoreau, of course.)
Cleveland Cavaliers, Lebron James, Media
Reader Comments (4)
But what is he king of?
The best every basketball player without a ring.
I know you're a Cleveland hater, but my point is that LeBron didn't give himself that nickname. So in Cowlishaw's attempt to rip LBJ and suggest he doesn't deserve such a nickname, perhaps he should blast his colleagues for throwing that name around.
Sorry to sound juvenile, but folks need not hate the player; they should hate the game. Or at least the media.
JWise makes a great point. I was so sick of hearing on ESPN about how he didn't try harder and people trying to get in his head. Well written man.
I had similar thoughts when I read your previous article on Lebron.