Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James AP FILE PHOTO
LeBron James is ranting and raving in the face of criticism. The world’s most dominant basketball player is mad as heck and can’t take it anymore.
Especially from NBA Hall of Famer and league analyst Charles Barkley.
“I am not going to let him (Barkley) disrespect my legacy like that,” James told reporters Jan. 30 after the collapsing Cleveland Cavaliers lost to Dallas, the West’s last place team, 97-104.
(They started February with a bang, cruising 125-97 against the Minnesota Timberwolves Tuesday night).
James’ attitude has been seemingly cavalier lately amid Cleveland’s struggles.
Because of injuries to Chris Andersen, JR Smith and now Kevin Love, the team lost 8 of their 15 games last month, prompting James to call out the front office for mistrust of younger players, failure to insert a playmaker and fill up “dead spots” in the Cavalier roster.
Following James’ tirade, Barkley, an analyst for “NBA on TNT,” recently called James “inappropriate, whiny, all of the above.”
King James not only fired back, he emptied the clip—unmindful of NBA fans worldwide who are now a mere video or audio grab away from the action via traditional and social media platforms on the Web.
“I’m not the one who threw somebody through a window. I never spit on a kid,” James said, referring to Barkley’s scuffles and misdeeds in the past. “I never had unpaid debt in Las Vegas. I never said, ‘I’m not a role model.’”
James said he has represented the NBA the right way. “Fourteen years, never got in trouble. Respected the game. Print that,” he told scribes.
Meanwhile, Barkley has belittled James, saying the four-time league MVP and three-time NBA champion would never break into the top five of the league’s all-time best.
Sir Charles also called James’ previous move to the Miami Heat as a free agent a “punk move,”—salvos that James initially dismissed as “good for the ratings.”
Late last year, James blew a fuse and castigated another critic, New York Knicks president Phil Jackson, who referred to the player’s business associates as his “posse.”
Condolences to the family of Dr. Arthur Rosenfeld, the father of energy efficiency, who died at 90 in Berkeley, California, last week. I was a media spokesperson for Dr. Rosenfeld when he served as a California energy commissioner in Sacramento years ago. When you think of green buildings, LED bulbs and energy-miser refrigerators and air conditioners, think of Dr. Rosenfeld’s lifetime of achievement.