The LeBron James Thread

[wwharton]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

You're right it wasn't specifically a charity event, but it was a nice redeeming feature of the event. A lot of money was raised for a good cause so I think some of his "narcissism" should be forgiven. I don't expect those who don't like him to completely forgive him (or that they even necessarily should) but it wasn't all bad.

This is my problem with it specifically. It's almost like the little devil on their shoulder (won't say LBJ's bc I honestly think he just thought this all was a cool idea) knew this was a bad idea, but throwing a charity at it would soften the blow... and that's pretty much exactly what you just said.

There are a million ways to raise money for charity, and there's always the one where if you make an insane amount of money you can just give some charity without any fanfare. But what I think you're missing is that people aren't complaining bc he gave the money of the event to charity... that's never a bad thing. But if I rob a bank and give the money to charity it doesn't take away the fact that I robbed a bank. The Boys and Girls clubs aren't happy about The Decision, they're happy about the money. You'd probably even find some of them that would tell you the way he handled the situation was a bad idea.

Yeah actually it does.

Being from New Orleans and dealing with Katrina you think I gave a damn why people helped us out? Nope we took the charity and thank those people like they were saints(no pun intended). I still want to thank the people of Austin they treated us really well.

I don't remember many, if any, of those people using their charity to promote a movie, tv show, or to get more people to come watch them play a sport (not to mention doctors, lawyers, construction workers, fire fighters, etc). Selfless people giving their time and money to help others in need is a wonderful thing. It's wonderful that Lebron's people thought to help some in need since they didn't need the money that would be brought in for this event... but the event was planned and the idea to include a charity came later. It doesn't excuse the event itself.

[da ThRONe]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

I don't remember many, if any, of those people using their charity to promote a movie, tv show, or to get more people to come watch them play a sport (not to mention doctors, lawyers, construction workers, fire fighters, etc). Selfless people giving their time and money to help others in need is a wonderful thing. It's wonderful that Lebron's people thought to help some in need since they didn't need the money that would be brought in for this event... but the event was planned and the idea to include a charity came later. It doesn't excuse the event itself.

Why does it need excusing? When has self promotion become a crime? The league is always throwing around the NBA cares around. Everybody in the basketball world wanted to know where LeBron was going his team capitalized on all the hype. Nothing more nothing less than selling cars or sneakers. I thought it was poorly done, it required him to shut out everybody including his old FO, but I saw nothing wrong with it.

[KSUowls]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

@wwharton
While I don't necessarily agree with you on every point there I don't really disagree with all of it either. My point is just that there are better things to criticize Lebron about than the charity event. If someone brings it up as a reason in support of Lebron and the Decision then just accept that particular part of it as a good thing. You can of course offer a rebuttal bringing up other facts/events about the Decision or something else, but when you start criticizing him because of the charity aspect of it (he could have given money out of his own pocket, he could have done a different charity event, etc...) then you are reaching imo.

[The15thunter]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/1557...on-russell.htm

Anybody see Kareem's open letter to Scottie Pippen? Boy oh boy.

sigh. i disagree with a lot of what kareem said. i'll just put it that way.

[KSUowls]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Yeah...that open letter was well...

To put it bluntly, it was not very intelligent. That much can be summed up in the last paragraph. Pretty easy to understand that if you increase the size of the pool of people playing basketball then you increase the chances of finding great players.

So I'll just agree with thehunter. I disagree with a lot of what Kareem said and leave it at that.

[wwharton]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Why does it need excusing? When has self promotion become a crime? The league is always throwing around the NBA cares around. Everybody in the basketball world wanted to know where LeBron was going his team capitalized on all the hype. Nothing more nothing less than selling cars or sneakers. I thought it was poorly done, it required him to shut out everybody including his old FO, but I saw nothing wrong with it.

1) If you thought it was poorly done as you just stated, then you saw something wrong with it.

2) I don't want any part of revisiting that long discussion about what was wrong with it... plenty of pages of posts already for that.

@wwharton
While I don't necessarily agree with you on every point there I don't really disagree with all of it either. My point is just that there are better things to criticize Lebron about than the charity event. If someone brings it up as a reason in support of Lebron and the Decision then just accept that particular part of it as a good thing. You can of course offer a rebuttal bringing up other facts/events about the Decision or something else, but when you start criticizing him because of the charity aspect of it (he could have given money out of his own pocket, he could have done a different charity event, etc...) then you are reaching imo.

I understand what you're saying, just trying to show you a different way of looking at it... the way I understand what the poster was saying (sorry too lazy to go back and see who it was). It wasn't criticizing the idea that they included the charity at all. It's more frustrating with someone saying you shouldn't criticize The Decision bc it was for charity. Hence the bank robbing (or maybe more appropriately, Robin Hood) example.

For example, if you said something like "I'm at least glad they contributed the money to charity." I don't think anyone would disagree at all.

[da ThRONe]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

1) If you thought it was poorly done as you just stated, then you saw something wrong with it.

2) I don't want any part of revisiting that long discussion about what was wrong with it... plenty of pages of posts already for that.



I understand what you're saying, just trying to show you a different way of looking at it... the way I understand what the poster was saying (sorry too lazy to go back and see who it was). It wasn't criticizing the idea that they included the charity at all. It's more frustrating with someone saying you shouldn't criticize The Decision bc it was for charity. Hence the bank robbing (or maybe more appropriately, Robin Hood) example.

For example, if you said something like "I'm at least glad they contributed the money to charity." I don't think anyone would disagree at all.

This is not true. I thought the format was boring. The unnecessary blah question was wrong not the interview. Two completely different things. It's like saying because a commercial is bad making commercials are wrong.

[King_B_Mack]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

@wwharton
While I don't necessarily agree with you on every point there I don't really disagree with all of it either. My point is just that there are better things to criticize Lebron about than the charity event. If someone brings it up as a reason in support of Lebron and the Decision then just accept that particular part of it as a good thing. You can of course offer a rebuttal bringing up other facts/events about the Decision or something else, but when you start criticizing him because of the charity aspect of it (he could have given money out of his own pocket, he could have done a different charity event, etc...) then you are reaching imo.

How is it reaching to say he could give money out of his own pocket instead of what he did if he really was concerned about giving to charity? Barry Bonds is putting Bryan Stow's kids through college with no real gain in it for him. Braylon Edwards is sending 100 kids to college. Andrew Bogut just matched a reward for a missing kid in Australia. Celebrities everywhere do charity work that we don't hear a peep about all the time that isn't solely to promote something. Nobody is flat out criticizing the charity aspect of The Decision, but when someone tries to defend the thing with that part of it as if LeBron needed to do this to raise money then it's not a reach for someone to call them and LeBron's squad out for what they did...LeBron knowing what his decision was, knowing the way he was going about it was wrong and deciding to toss in the charity thing to cover his bases in case people got too pissed off about what he was doing. Thing is they didn't foresee the backlash being quite what it ended up being. Either way, it definitely isn't a reach for someone to say he didn't need to have the biggest ego stroke/screw you to a city in history to give money to charity.

[da ThRONe]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

How is it reaching to say he could give money out of his own pocket instead of what he did if he really was concerned about giving to charity? Barry Bonds is putting Bryan Stow's kids through college with no real gain in it for him. Braylon Edwards is sending 100 kids to college. Andrew Bogut just matched a reward for a missing kid in Australia. Celebrities everywhere do charity work that we don't hear a peep about all the time that isn't solely to promote something. Nobody is flat out criticizing the charity aspect of The Decision, but when someone tries to defend the thing with that part of it as if LeBron needed to do this to raise money then it's not a reach for someone to call them and LeBron's squad out for what they did...LeBron knowing what his decision was, knowing the way he was going about it was wrong and deciding to toss in the charity thing to cover his bases in case people got too pissed off about what he was doing. Thing is they didn't foresee the backlash being quite what it ended up being. Either way, it definitely isn't a reach for someone to say he didn't need to have the biggest ego stroke/screw you to a city in history to give money to charity.

You made some good points and I kind of put my foot in my mouth saying most people charity is self promoting. But who has to justify the Decision? Other then staging out his decision and a lame way(which I fully expected) there was nothing that requires justification. He was probably the only athlete in the NBA who could have pulled this off so just because he is the 1st(and likely the last) to do this doesn't mean it was wrong. As far as the money to charity goes that's a win-win.

[Kashanova]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

Still doesn't compare to hurricane victims. That's the point.

the decision happened last year, the hurricanes were recent, no?

[mKoz26]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

the decision happened last year, the hurricanes were recent, no?

No. Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Don't see what your point is there anyway.

[Kashanova]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

No. Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Don't see what your point is there anyway.

my point, is all the proceeds went to charities yet people want to criticize the charities they went to, People are reaching for nothing.


Also Lebron took part in a charitable event for the Katrina victims as well.

<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mVizdUXtEU0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[wwharton]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

This is not true. I thought the format was boring. The unnecessary blah question was wrong not the interview. Two completely different things. It's like saying because a commercial is bad making commercials are wrong.

Come on man, that's a horrible comparison, lol.

I won't ignore your point bc of it though... the thing is the man was just saying he was leaving the Cavs and going to the Heat. If you're going to turn that into an hour long TV event that's promoted for days in advance, what exactly did you expect? You say the unnecessary blah questions were wrong but it had no chance of being anything else but that. People are criticizing James bc he seemed to feel that he's so important that bc it's him, this would be interesting. In that sense, you agree with all of those people in that no, Lebron, you're not, lol.

Where you fall short is with the idea that since the benefits of this were so small, the consequences of what it did to the Cavs fans, the team, what the dragging out did to other teams in the hunt, etc, etc were made that much worse. It just wasn't worth it. You don't agree with that... it's cool. But you do recognize what was wrong with the idea in the first place.

[wwharton]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

my point, is all the proceeds went to charities yet people want to criticize the charities they went to, People are reaching for nothing.


Also Lebron took part in a charitable event for the Katrina victims as well.

<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mVizdUXtEU0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Nobody criticizes the charities they went to and no one said Lebron isn't legitimately charitable.

[mKoz26]

Re: The LeBron James Thread

my point, is all the proceeds went to charities yet people want to criticize the charities they went to, People are reaching for nothing.


Also Lebron took part in a charitable event for the Katrina victims as well.

<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mVizdUXtEU0" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="480"></iframe>

"People" are criticizing the notions that LeBron's Decision was for charity and that the charitable aspect was the intention rather than a throw-in for PR.

That was the justification for The Decision. That it was charity.

What I and others are saying is that the charity part was only for PR and was a complete afterthought.

Nobody is saying LeBron isn't charitable or whatever else. The only person reaching is you.