LeBron James(notes) has embraced the villain role in a most unprecedented way, pushing away from his peers and aligning himself with David Stern, Dan Gilbert and the owners desperate to destroy the Players Association. He left the sport stunned on Christmas Eve, searching for an understanding of why he would go so far to undermine the union on the cusp of an apocalyptic collective bargaining brawl.
James advocated contraction of teams, the loss of jobs and furthered the make-believe revision that the 1980s had a deeper pool of talent with fewer teams. “Watered down,” he called the NBA, and ownership has been gifted such a public-relations coup in its historic campaign to crush the players’ union.
As one prominent agent said, “How do you say that right before collective bargaining? Does he get that he’s advocating to reduce the number of jobs in the league? LeBron has no idea what happens when he says [stuff] like this.”
What people don’t like now is how a two-time MVP would quit playing in the biggest playoff series of his life, or how a superstar would hijack the NBA Finals stage as a prelude to his free agency or how a star like James can manage the marketing of a rival like Chris Paul(notes). Whatever James’ personal preferences for a league littered with mini All-Star teams, his logic is forever flawed and based on nothing beyond his own myopic prism of the world.
