How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

All this bitching and moaning over a ******* handshake. And I thought the Shaq thread was ridiculous.

If anything people should be more pissed off at his excuse for doing as opposed to the action itself. Where was all this ruckus at when Shaq didn't shake any of the Pistons hands after they won the Championship? Or when Shaq didn't shake hands with Kobe before their first game against each other after he was traded?

The Magic don't/didn't seem bothered by it. Dwight, as far as what he said, didn't seem bothered by it, but yet we're here saying Lebron is less of a man because he didn't shake the man's hand after the game. What if he shook his hand but then you heard he didn't say anything to Dwight, didn't wish him luck or anything, would you still crucify him then even though he shook his hand?

[ehh]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

Is it the right thing to do? Absolutely. Do I care of someone does or does not do it? Not at all.

I feel like it's PMS time around the Pro Basketball forum the last two days with all the emotions, whining, crying and pyscho-analyzing going on over this situation. I honestly can't tell if I'm at a basketball forum a 16 year old girl's slumber party.

Yes, for the interest of the NBA and LeBron's "duty" as a role model he shouldn't have just walked away but it's hilarious how the articles written the night of Game 6 were mellow and talked about how LeBron was upset and just walked off the floor, took one look back at the crowd, went into the locker room, showered and got on the team bus. There was no ripping him, no overblowing the situation, nothing. It's like the ******* shock-jock writers decided later on to make this a huge deal.

Honestly, what bothers me more than anything about LeBron and the Cavs are the pregame antics and their behavior after winning games or at the end of blowouts. The posing, the polaroid crap, laughter, etc. That stuff is way more out of line than not shaking an opponent's hand IMO. But at the same time I think it goes hand in hand, I think people are so up in arms because he acts like a tool when he wins and then is perceived as a baby for this stunt.

And the kicker of it all is that this is basically the only thing people can rip LeBron about. There are always haters, always people who want to bring down people at the top. Kobe was selfish, a brat, couldn't (and still can't) win without Shaq, the Colorado incident, etc. MJ was a ball hog, didn't make his teammates better, shot too often, treated teammates like crap, etc. Shaq and Duncan play(ed) in a weak era and won titles after all the great centers of the late 80's/early 90's retired or were in their career's twilights.

There are none of those knocks on LeBron. The biggest knock on his on-court/game is that his J is inconsistent. The FT problems are pretty much gone. He's never been a selfish player, plays hard, carries his team and does it all. So when there's a chance to rip him, you've got to do it and do it hard. Make sure you get your punches in while you can.

[Court_vision]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

Walking off the court after an emotional loss and not shaking hands = understandable.

I am not going to crititicise him too much for that.

Issuing a statement 48 HOURS LATER that shaking hands is not needed and that he's a winner etc etc...48 hours later when he's had time to calm down...= completely classless.

HUGE difference here. No one is really going to slam him for the heat of the moment stuff post defeat.

But 48 hours later to try and justify "I am a winner, winner's don't need to shake hands" etc etc is just pathetic.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

I thought it was the next day he issued his excuse to the media?

[sqeg]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

Even though it is the right thing to do, I have nothing against not doing. Look at early and mid 90s. Pistons-Bulls.

However, seeing how him and Dwight are friends, he should have done something.

Pistons-Bulls is just a bad comparison, those 2 teams literally hated each other. I mean the way the Pistons played was, arguably, borderline dirty.

The Magic & Cavs, on the outside, do not look remotely, as tho hate each other.

If someone beats you, at the very LEAST, you can show them some respect for the a$$ whoopin they gave you unless they beat you in a cheap way.

It's not about giving token gestures or if the other team is or will get all butthurt from not recieving a congrats or bump from their opponent, it never was. It's about giving your opponent their due respect if they've earned it, & I think the Magic earned it.

[Court_vision]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

This is a good article. Hopefully Bron will get some people around him one day who will stand up to him / keep him grounded.

<SCRIPT>YAHOO.Sports.ultPageInfo = {"ult" : true, "spaceid" : 97684947};</SCRIPT>King James left the playoffs as a loser

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports 7 hours, 46 minutes ago




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 ***.



“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.

Adrian Wojnarowski is the NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports.

[ehh]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

The Magic & Cavs, on the outside, do not look remotely, as tho hate each other.
.

They obviously don't but hopefully this starts one hell of a rivalry. I'm praying the first time these two teams meet next year and LBJ comes down the lane Duhwight will be there to send a nice hard message. I'd probably call out from work the next day and start drinking if that actually happen I'd be so excited.

[Moses Shuttlesworth]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

Court_vision, that's a damn good article.

[Brankles]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

You know what's blown out of proportion? The number of people who are saying "this is blown out of proportion."

Sweet Baby James' seemingly insignificant no handshake will eventually lead to more disrespectful things down the road. It is important he is criticized for it now and made an example of before other players start to do it.

Sportsmanship is an important thing, something of honor that we should not allow to erode over the years. Beat your man up during the game. Run your mouth off during the game. Get in his head, pinch his arms, tug on his jersey. Go to war.

But after the game is over, look your opponent in the eye and shake his hand like a man. Being a good winner is easy. LeBron would have had a big a** smile on his face while shaking Dwight's hand after Game 7 had the Cavs won. He'd be hopping around doing his poses and putting on his swagger.

Instead, he loses, and storms off the court. Like the article says, he needs an important person in his life to tell him not to do that again. He's surrounded by "Yes" men, weak people who are riding his coat tails because he's such an incredible talent.


This is not about being real, either. This is about a lack of understanding of the nature of sportsmanship, about LeBron needing to mature. Being real means speaking your mind. LeBron is not being real, he's just acting like a kid who doesn't know how to act.

[Cebby]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

Of course Lebron left the playoffs a loser. So will all but 12 players.

Sweet Baby James' seemingly insignificant no handshake will eventually lead to more disrespectful things down the road.

Like what?

[ehh]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

Funny a Wojnarowski article gets posted, the ring leader of YS!'s borderline tabloid stable of writers. The same guy who tried to blow UConn's "recruiting violations" wildly out of proportion and act like the program would never be the same again and Jim Calhoun would be run off and forced into retirement.

[BJNT]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

This is a good article. Hopefully Bron will get some people around him one day who will stand up to him / keep him grounded.

<SCRIPT>YAHOO.Sports.ultPageInfo = {"ult" : true, "spaceid" : 97684947};</SCRIPT>King James left the playoffs as a loser

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports 7 hours, 46 minutes ago




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 ***.



“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.

Adrian Wojnarowski is the NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports.

You know people who think this way act like Lebron won't get right back in their faces and say "I don't give a care what you say. I'm not apologizing for it and I'd do it again and if you don't like it too bad. Do something about it chump" When I played ball in high school we had to get in line and shake the opponents hand after the game, but that was because we had to. When I told any team that beat good game I never meant it. I'm sorry you whoop my butt I'm not giving you proops for it. I'm thinking about getting you back in the next game asap. I don't care if it's basketball, video games, or a staredown contest.

[Hawaii_Stars]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

I am surprised of James actions after the loss. I thought he was better than what he has showed. Like they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He knew his team was going to lose with time running out, he could have at least walked past his "friend" Dwight Howard and said something if he didn't want to shake his hand. Still he had another opportunity to right his wrong action. But he didn't address the media after the game. I suppose he let his teammates out to dry to face the media as he feels they left him out to dry. Then the next day, when you think he'd come to his senses about what he did, he justifies himself. Then he says he emailed Dwight. A frecking email, are you kidding me? You telling me he couldn't pick up the phone and say it to him? That is being a coward to me. I hope LeBron never gets a title with his attitude. Maybe one day he will grow up and be a man on the inside, instead of just looking like one.

[Brankles]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

Like what?

Not only further disrespect of opponents, but of teammates as well. All of his teammates in Cleveland look scared of him, in a bad way. Not in a "you're our leader" type of way, but in a "if I have a falling out with you, I'll get traded" kind of way. This is also a sign he will take his opponents lightly because he doesn't think they're on his level.

Not to mention the shockwave he's sending throughout through his position as a role model and trend setter for children.

It's kind of like the single child who's parent let them run wild and do whatever they wanted. Nobody is telling LeBron this is wrong and he's just running with it at this point, trying to justify it with flawed reasoning.

You know people who think this way act like Lebron won't get right back in their faces and say "I don't give a care what you say. I'm not apologizing for it and I'd do it again and if you don't like it too bad. Do something about it chump" When I played ball in high school we had to get in line and shake the opponents hand after the game, but that was because we had to. When I told any team that beat good game I never meant it. I'm sorry you whoop my butt I'm not giving you proops for it. I'm thinking about getting you back in the next game asap. I don't care if it's basketball, video games, or a staredown contest.

That's disappointing to hear.

Honestly, I acted like a crazy person when I was about 10-15 years old when our team lost games or when things didn't go my way. I would punt balls into stands after losses, cuss out coaches, teammates and opponents. Some games after I lost I would cry, others I would lash out. After doing this, I would go home and shoot ball by myself for hours. I always tried to get better. As I matured and realized how this sportsmanship thing worked, how I was making a fool out of myself after losing, I kept going home and practicing and improving... but I dropped the whole temper tantrum thing. I grew up, even if I didn't always get my way.

Unless someone is out there trying to personally punk me, try and hurt me, or go after teammates, I'm going to respect them as an equal. It's up to me to be a man after the game and thank my opponent for playing a good game out there and respecting me, my teammates and the sport. That's the way I was brought up. It's not a matter of desire. Shaking hands after a game has nothing to do with punking out, being weak, or being a loser. It's all about respect.

If you truly don't want to show any respect to another man because he beat you in a basketball game then there lies deeper issues here that I either don't care about, don't want to talk about, or simply don't belong in a sports forum.

In LeBron's instance, I think he doesn't respect a whole lot of people because his ego has been constantly fed since he was a pre-teen. He gets enough "respect" from the empty suits around him to the point where he feels like he doesn't need to give back to anyone else. It's not a give-take relationship with him. It's all take, and at this point in his life he can get away with it without truly noticing, which is unfortunate.

[Hawaii_Stars]

Re: How do you feel about congratulating your opponent after a loss?

I think the whole Cleveland organization is too scared of LeBron. They are trying to kiss his tail so he won't leave as a FA.