[ESPN]LeBron skips out on reporters after Game 6 loss

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-lebron060109&prov=yhoo&type=lgns


King James left the playoffs as a loser

I’m a winner, King James proclaimed. So, there you go. That’s his reason for rushing out of the conference finals without so much as a nod to Dwight Howard(notes) and the Orlando Magic. That’s his reason for marching to the bus and letting the Cleveland Cavaliers’ spare parts take care of his responsibilities in the interview room.

Funny, but James stayed on the court to make sure the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks paid respect to him. As it turns out, there’s one thing allowed to happen at the end of a playoff series: Everyone bows down and kisses the King’s ring. Only, LeBron doesn’t have a ring. He’s never won a game in the NBA Finals.

So, yes, maybe they just have to kiss his ass.

“It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that,” James said.

No, nothing like that. Yes, James cares so much that it isn’t possible to be gracious and humbled.

You know me, he told the reporters in Cleveland on Sunday. I’m a competitor. “If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate them,” James said. “It doesn’t make sense for me to go over and shake somebody’s hand.”

Here’s the question: Who has the guts to tell him that he sounds like an immature, self-absorbed brat?

Here’s the problem for the Cavaliers and James: No one.

It won’t be Cleveland Cavaliers ownership, front office and coaches. It won’t be the NBA. It won’t be Nike. And it sure won’t be those childhood sycophants who surround James and tell everyone what a brilliant businessman LeBron is because they can answer the phone when corporations call for a famous pitchman.

LeBron doesn’t want to win more than Michael Jordan did, but Jordan could stop and shake a winner’s hand. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird could, too. Julius Erving did. Kobe Bryant(notes). Isiah Thomas led a walkout after losing to the Chicago Bulls after winning two NBA titles, but Joe Dumars never followed him. He stayed and shook Jordan’s hand, the way Jordan had always shook his when the Pistons had beaten him.

“M.J. had stopped, shook my hand and hugged me three straight years that we had beaten them in the playoffs,” Dumars once told me. “There was no way I walking off the court without shaking the Bulls’ hands.”

Within the Cavs, someone needed to tell James that he embarrassed himself and the franchise, but that won’t happen. They’re too scared of him. Most league executives with knowledge of Cleveland’s operation believe it’s far more of an ownership issue, than basketball operations.

If general manager Danny Ferry and coach Mike Brown privately disdain the ridiculous posing for pictures that James started with his teammates on a 13-game winning streak, the owner is believed to see the foolishness as a marketing dream.

Someone should’ve told James that the pregame Polaroid act was belittling and beneath a championship contender, but it never happened.

All season, the Cavaliers acted too entitled, too arrogant for a team that’s won nothing. They ran out demanding that Mo Williams(notes) be made an All-Star, when the truth bore itself out in the playoffs: Cleveland has one All-Star. Nevertheless, Williams still embarrassed the Cavs with foolish proclamations and guarantees his middling talent couldn’t deliver.

“If you believe in karma with that nonsense,” one Western Conference executive said, “then Cleveland got what was coming to them.”

The Cavaliers are terrified of James. When you’re around them, it’s sometimes embarrassing to watch the way they tip-toe and grovel with him. In their defense, that’s how James wants it. As a childhood prodigy, that’s all LeBron’s ever known. The Cavs are at his mercy until he becomes a free agent in July of 2010, and that isn’t going to change. There’s no chance that he signs an extension this summer, because that would be the end of the drama, the intrigue and LeBron James(notes) isn’t letting that go away.

Now, Ferry goes back to the phones and starts work on surrounding James with championship talent. Cleveland is sure to revisit the Shaquille O’Neal(notes) talks with the Phoenix Suns, and James and his associates will send out word that, hey, we’ll go to New York unless the Cavs deliver him his title. Well, they’ve reached the NBA Finals and had the best record in the NBA within the past three seasons, so they must have surrounded James with something that works there.

Nevertheless, James distanced himself in losing again, after a season in which he sold himself as all for one, and one for all. James had been an MVP until the very final moments of the basketball season, and then, he embarrassed himself and acted like a petulant kid. In a world where everyone in his life is too fearful or too dependent, LeBron James goes into the summer believing his own nonsense that he walked out of this season a winner.

As usual, there’s no one to tell him.

Except maybe now, Kobe’s puppet.

 

The hate is just as sickening as the hype, if not more.

James is the MVP this season, but he's not baby Jesus. Winners show "class" to be politically correct. Everyone complains LeBron as if they normally pay any attention to losers.

Lots of people want LeBron to fail. He's not my favorite player, nor is Kobe, but it's amazing how many so-called fans want those best players to fail. The excuse? They are hyped, or they are not role-models. What's the exact reason beyond jealousy, that they are not on our team? I can't think of any.

If you are looking for role models, you should go ahead to worship Yao or Shane. If you are excited about the game, then watch how LeBron gave everything on the court, and how he carried his team, and how he made that desperation shot. He didn't pay respect to opponents after a painful loss, as a young player? Big deal.

 

this is just getting ridiculous. a "roundtable" on sportscenter to talk about it.

 

LeBron is a celebrity. Celebrities have another standard from the ordinary Joe. If you want to be worshiped publicly, you'd better be prepared to be scrutinized publicly.

"With great power comes great responsibility." --- Spider Man.

 

This is so lame. LeBron handled the situation poorly. He made it worse when he finally talked. However, this is getting blown way out of proportion. This is why I avoid ESPN except for highlights of games i miss

 

What do you have against tables that are round?

 

agree completely with everything. I used to be a big fan of sports reporters but i don't look for it anymore

 

If opponents want a hug from LBJ, they better sweep the Cavs. LBJ did hug the Spurs when the Spurs swept their asses.

 

Not hating him, but what LBJ did and said was quite annoying. That "I am a winner" excuse is so lame, as if all former greats who have ever followed that tradition are losers.

And you don't bite the hand that feeds you. LBJ has made a double-fault. Dissing other players is one thing, dissing the media as well is simply silly.

 

why people giving LBJ a hard time for this???pathetic

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-jimlitke-060109&prov=ap&type=lgns

Lebron Should Know Respect isn't a one-way-street
LeBron James(notes) knows how to shake hands. It shouldn’t be that hard to remember when.

After losing a playoff series, for instance, no matter how much of a “competitor” you fancy yourself.

For one thing, you’re done competing. For another, it doesn’t require much effort, or sincerity. If sportsmanship isn’t motivation enough, and whatever friendships you’ve forged on the other side aren’t important enough, then how about just to show some respect?

Lord knows, James gets his share.

Let’s be clear: For the most part, James has been a model citizen. He’s polite, accessible, generous with his time and money, and plays hard every night. Now 24, he’s handled the spotlight and the comparisons to Michael Jordan since his junior year of high school with poise, and without the benefit of even one year on a college campus, let alone with somebody like Dean Smith—who mentored Jordan at North Carolina—in his corner.

Even so, a little more maturity was in order Saturday night. In the seconds after the Magic eliminated his Cavaliers, James had the good sense on his rush toward the exit to stop and shake hands with all-time NBA great Oscar Robertson, who, coincidentally, was walking onto the floor to present the Eastern Conference trophy to Orlando.

But that was it.

James left without saying a word and his explanation a day later was more awkward still.

“It’s hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them. I mean, I’m a winner. That’s not being a poor sport or anything like that,” he told reporters back at the team’s facility Sunday in Cleveland. “Somebody beat you up, you’re not going to congratulate them on beating you up.

“I’m a competitor,” he added. “That’s what I do. It don’t make sense to me to go up and shake somebody’s hand.”

It has, though, for generations of ballplayers, including a lucky few who were every bit as gifted as James, and dozens more whose trophy collections James will need plenty of luck to match.

Jordan, to name one, made a point of shaking the hands of the Pistons’ self-styled “Bad Boys” every time they knocked his less-talented Bulls out of the Eastern Conference playoffs early in his pro career, in much the same situation James finds himself now. His best was good enough to drag an average team through the regular season and into the playoffs. But against the best teams, trying to win a championship single-handedly too often turned his teammates into, well, witnesses.

“Four other guys standing around waiting for something to happen,” Jordan conceded just before the Bulls finally broke through, “isn’t going to do anybody any good.”

Oddly enough, Jordan never got the hand shakes returned. After the Bulls beat Detroit en route to their first title in 1991, the Pistons’ trio of Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Mark Aguirre walked off the court near the end of the game in a deliberate snub. Jordan responded to the slight by making sure the Pistons never got by him again.

Whether Dwight Howard(notes) responds the same way remains to be seen. Though he said he understood why James left the court without a word, if anyone earned a handshake and the measure of respect that goes with it, that guy was Howard.

The Magic center was a teammate on last summer’s U.S. Olympic squad and he looks more and more like a force to be reckoned with for years to come. Howard came into the league less polished and his game isn’t as showy, but he’s the same age as James and he’s already mastered the toughest lesson about being a star—making everyone around him better.

When asked about LeBron’s disappearing act, Howard said he received a congratulatory, late-night e-mail and didn’t sound too vexed.

“I just thought he would have said something to me, or said something to the team. He’s probably upset, probably hurt and understand that, respect it. One day we’ll see each other,” he said, “and I’ll have to wait until then.”

But in the next moment, asked whether he was surprised, Howard barely hesitated.

“Real surprised,” he said.

No one competes in a sport to make excuses or concession speeches. But being able to make a passable one—even if it’s just muttering “well done” in a handshake line—used to be a consequence of losing, a lesson in responsibility.

What James did offended old-school sensibilities, to be sure, but it also sent the wrong message to the guys playing against and especially alongside him at the moment.

If that’s his idea of leadership, he’s headed in the wrong direction.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/news/story?id=4222452

So, NBA decides to arbitrarily enforce its rules. Is there anyone that can still defend there aren't conspiracies within the NBA?

 

So...the MVPs can behave however they want? Show lack of sportsmanship? THAT'S pathetic, sir.

Duncan McDonuts... thank you for that note... I bet if it were Artest, he'd have to pay millions.

Why not? SO-CALLED MVP of the league... Bwwwaaahhhahahahahahaha... LOL!

 

really? so poor sportsmanship is ok? I don't think so...Look, he was PO'd, fine, but shake your opponents hand and move on...it's not that hard...

 

that's what she said...

hey, I roam other places besides the Hangout sometimes...

 

whats up with the NBA.. just fine Lebron.. he can afford it

this will actually be good for the NBA and Lebron because it will dampen all these conspiracy/favoritism/hype talk..

 

Does the rule has a warning tag? Or is there any precedent? LeBron broke a rule. If the rule says the player should be fined, then he should be fined, period. Even if the rule has a warning provision, the statement doesn't sound like it is a warning. It says, IF Cleveland was still playing he WOULD have received a warning.

I think that is lame. I wouldn't say it's conspiracy. But the NBA have only themselves to be blamed. The superstar treatment on and off the court is getting ridiculous.

 

What's the point? Players must really stay after a game to talk to the reporters ?

 

Why is this even being argued? Every kid that's ever played sports- and that includes LeBron- knows that you shake the opponent's hand when you lose. It's ingrained in all of us as the "right thing to do"- and don't think LeBron doesn't know that, either.

LeBron's been so used to winning that I don't think the guy literally knows what to do when he's on the other end. And Mike Brown and/or Ferry should have sat him down and told him in no uncertain terms that what he did was wrong. But they're too afraid to do this- like that article said, the whole Cleveland organization is walking around on eggshells with this guy.

I've been watching the NBA for 25+ years, and this is common and expected when a team loses a playoff series. I mean, I'm not expecting them to line up like little leaguers and do it that way, but LeBron knows better and what he did was a classic case of poor sportsmanship. The fact that it's even being debated is ludicrous.

That goes for McGrady not showing up for playoff games because he was "rehabbing." Bull****. You can take off 2-3 hours and show up to support your teammates. What a crock. McGrady should've been at every game like Kevin Garnett and it just shows what a selfish mentality he has.

 

Yes, that's a rule for NBA players. Kind of like the rule of wearing suit and tie on the bench if you are not suiting up to play. Those are NBA's "professionalism" rules. Whether the rule is right is another debate. The point is, LeBron broke a rule and the league is not punishing him.

edit: I assume you are talking about the talking to reporters part. NBA players are required to talk to reporters after a game. I don't think there is a rule for players to shake the opponent's hands after a loss. That's just common sportsman conduct.