LeBron James keeps giving us more reasons to not like him

I admire tremendous talent when I see it and the conversation about LeBron being the GOAT (greatest of all time) is one where it is hard to argue that he isn't even when compared to the greats of the past like Kobe, Bird, Chamberlain, and Jordan. I think Chamberlain tends to get overlooked because of how long ago it was but this beast of a player scored 100 points on his own in a game in '62. You have to go down to more than 40th place to find LeBron's name on the list at all. However, we can all agree that just scoring a lot of points does not a GOAT make. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has the most points scored over a career but in a game of one-on-one any of the other names I have mentioned and many more would absolutely destroy Kareem.

To get back on point: LeBron's talent is undeniable even as his abilities, as is the case with literally every other NBA player that has ever lived, is fading with age. LeBron is a phenom but as of the past couple of years he is slowly but surely becoming a player whose failures are being applauded by a lot of the fans and mostly this was because of his antics off the court.

Things are changing now though.

src

Basketball players flop to get a foul every now and then and this is a tactic that is not just utilized by James but it does seem to be happening in much greater frequency in the past couple of years than before. James is roasted by the online community when this happens and rightfully so. The grabbing of the head and rolling around on the ground when he is fouled is just embarrassing to watch, especially when no contact was made with his head.

This is most evident in a recent "play-in elimination game" versus the Golden State Warriors.

src

Now there is no doubt that he was fouled but Bron-Bron was clearly trying to upsell the foul in an attempt to get a "flagrant" call against Draymond Green. The game was very close at that point and you have to remember that this is a "loser goes home" situation. A flagrant call would have given James free throws and given the Lakers possession afterwards.

If you watched the game, Draymond Green was actually guarding two players at that point, expecting a pass over to Alex Caruso so when he turned around to see LeBron charging towards him, he jumped up in the air to prevent the shot. This is what all NBA teams do late in the game when it was close. Did he intend to foul LeBron that badly - we would like to think not.

In the end LeBron was rolling around on the ground grasping his head and held up the game for quite some time while the refs discussed what to do with the foul. In the end the refs made the correct decision by not awarding the flagrant foul, which would have almost certainly given a very big advantage to the Lakers in the late stages of the game.

Ironically, LeBron was claiming that he couldn't see after being poked in the eye, which would be a perfectly acceptable response to someone that actually was badly poked in the eye. However, on the very next play he nailed a 3 pointer despite not being able to see.

One of two things happened here: Either LeBron is so good that he doesn't even require eyesight to nail buckets from distance, or he was acting the entire time. I'm going to go with the latter opinion.

An additional point about all of this is that LeBron James was a very outspoken critic of the play-in system existing at all and immediately after going on the record saying "whoever came up with that shit needs to be fired!" he found his team in precisely that position of being in the play-in games and if the play-in system had NOT been in effect, he and the rest of the Lakers wouldn't even be in the playoffs at all. Now, with a victory over the Warriors, they will enter the "real tournament" against the Phoenix Suns, where the Lakers are expected to lose.

There was some talk about how great it would be if the Warriors were to win their 2nd play-in game and then meet the Lakers in the Western Conference final... but we all know that statistically speaking, this was never going to happen. It's all for naught though, because the Warriors lost to the Grizzlies in overtime.

_{this is an absolutely brilliant editing job for LeBron getting the "Best Actor" Oscar}

LeBron just keeps giving the public more ammunition to dislike him and his recent flopping spree has just been more ammo for the growing arsenal of dislike. We've got a guy here that inserts himself into politics and talks about oppression despite the fact that he is one of the highest-paid athletes in the world, he mocks and disrespects the very organization that has made him very very wealthy, and now he is resorting to cheating in order to try to get results.

I think there are very few people outside of L.A. that are actually cheering for this guy anymore and since his career will probably be coming to a close in the next 4 years or so, it might actually be too late for him to change this image. But then again, as someone with a net worth of half a BILLION dollars, does he really care? I reckon not.