It doesn’t matter what he does, good or bad, LeBron James will always be the subject of criticism. The 35-year-old is currently leading the Los Angeles Lakers to win their 17th title, playing great basketball and dominating their rivals, the Miami Heat. However, that hasn’t prevented Bron from getting bad comments regarding the Finals and the current state of the NBA in terms of popularity.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Game 1 of the Finals brought in 7.41 million viewers to ABC, the lowest viewership since 1994, where the Houston Rockets faced the New York Knicks in the big stage. The league has been active in sending messages against racial injustice and more social issues, which is believed to be the main reasons why they aren’t getting the same attention as before. LeBron James has never hidden his words when it comes to these matters and that might have cost the league losing a chunk of its audience.
Jason Whitlock attacked the King in a column, calling him out for ‘killing’ the game, explaining he can’t be considered the GOAT if he damages the game and doesn’t bring anything beneficial to it.
“LeBron James is destroying my love for the game. James, Nike and China have dragged the NBA into a racial propaganda war with the United States as the opposition.
I feel like I’m being forced to choose between love of country and love of basketball.
That’s not a hard choice for me. I choose America. I can survive without the NBA. The NBA apparently can’t survive without pleasing communist-run China.”
https://twitter.com/WhitlockJason/status/1311806189597007878
Besides LeBron, other players have raised their voices against injustices and some of them even threatened to stop playing in the middle of the postseason. He’s the biggest name in the league and it’ll bring more attention, but Bron isn’t one to hide his feelings when it comes to social issues.
The fact that the Lakers smashed the Heat in the first game of the series didn’t help the league, either, and seeing how comfortable the Lakers looked in Game 2, it does not look like the fans will return, at least not this year.
Jason Whitlock was recently in the news for a message sent by Allen Iverson, saying he hated a media member, which people thought it was Whitlock. Perhaps he’s getting another enemy in LeBron James after these comments.
