Most fair-minded fans would agree that LeBron James had every right to be bitter towards the management of the Cleveland Cavaliers. This week it appeared that he vented his anger on Twitter. Instead of confirming that, however, James decided to play more games and deny it. We're calling foul!
After the Miami Heat demolished the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night, James, in an apparent shot at the Cavaliers, posted the following on Twitter: "Crazy. Karma is a b****. Gets you every time. It's not good to wish bad on anybody. God sees everything!" The posting appeared to many commentators and observers to be a slam against Cleveland for the almost villainous treatment of James by both the Cavalier organization and its fans -- treatment that created simmering anger that was finally unleashed in his tweets. We agree with that conclusion.
Most fans remember the genesis of the bad feelings, a letter posted on the Cavaliers’ website shortly after James left for Miami. In it the Cleveland owner vilified James:
"This heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called 'curse' on Cleveland, Ohio. The self-declared former 'King' will be taking the 'curse' with him down south. And until he does 'right' by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma. Just watch."
In the face of what seems to be a rather obvious reference to the owner’s letter, James is now trying to convince us that there is no connection. When asked about his tweet before Wednesday night’s game, LeBron appeared to try to dodge accountability both for the intent of his tweet and the source of the tweet itself:
"It was just how I was feeling at the time. It wasn't even a comment from me. It was someone who sent it to me and I sent it out. ... I don't think it was no intent at all. I think everyone looks into everything I say. Everybody looked too far into it. It wasn't no intent at all. No hit toward that organization. I've moved on. Hopefully that organization has continued to move on. But I'm happy where I am as a Miami Heat player. It wasn't no hit at that franchise, no hit at that team, especially those players, at all."
James may be the greatest professional basketball player on the planet, but he should never take us at Sports Intelligence Analysts on in verbal dodge ball. In this world he is a novice. We quickly spotted a number of behavioral problems with his statements.
First, the inconsistency of saying “It was just how I was feeling at the time” followed by his effort to divert the blame to an unidentified individual, who supposedly sent the quote to him, is almost amateurish when it comes to verbal dodge ball. His qualified claim in which he said, “I don’t think it was no intent…” reflects his own underlying lack of confidence in his ability to convince fans that his intent was not malicious.
Perhaps the most significant deceptive behavior was his attack on fans in general when he said, “Everybody looked too far into it.” When the facts are not one’s ally, the only option tends to be to go on the offensive and try to blame someone else for the situation. That is clearly what James is trying to do here.
Stick to basketball, LeBron. You're 0-1 against our analytical team.
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