LeBron fined $25,000 for skipping postgame press conference Posted Jun 4 2009 8:30PM LOS ANGELES (AP) -- NBA commissioner David Stern says LeBron James has been fined $25,000 for skipping the postgame news conference after Cleveland lost to Orlando in the Eastern Conference finals. Stern said Thursday night that he spoke with the Cavaliers star on Wednesday and that James admitted he was wrong to not congratulate Orlando's players and coaches after the loss. James had surgery Tuesday to remove a benign growth near his jaw. He told Stern to convey his apology to the media before Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Magic and Los Angeles Lakers. Initially, Stern had said he wasn't going to fine James, but the commissioner said he reconsidered after thinking about it more. Link
Serves him right. He should have known better. As a superstar, all eyes will be on him and avoiding sanctioned events will merit him all the criticism.
Late call. Why does Stern have to "think more about it" before he changed his mind? Shouldn't it be a clear cut case? And yeah, that telling Stern to convey his message stuff is hilarious.
it should have been an immediate fine. not so much for not congratulating the other team but skipping out on the media. altho not congratulating the team was really really low. i hope he never wins a championship
maybe stern told the media because lebron just had surgery on his face. some of you guys need to chill out
If he was unable to speak to the media because of the surgery, he could have asked his PR people or the Cavs' people to "convey" his message. The whole thing just portrayed Stern as a LeBron buddy. Don't you see a problem with that? Besides, the tone of the message changed significantly from the one LeBron personally delivered to the media. Stern has turned into LeBron's personal PR rep.
all league's have faces, peyton manning was being pimped by the nfl long before he won a ring. baseball pimps its stars, from rodriguez to jeter, to pujols. its the nature of the beast, you guys are taking this way to seriously. you guys get upset that he pulled this stunt, rightfully so, but there is nothing wrong with the head of the league coming out and saying, "yeah, you guys were right, here's a fine".
Had anyone else mentioned this before? I had noticed it recently but forgot to ever post anything about it. I kept thinking "that wasn't there before...".
