LeBron James - Professional Gentleman of Politics

[WuDrWu]

STFU 'Bron.

The guy that (maybe) graduated high school calling out the guy that has a degree from Northwestern and a MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

I'll take B for $800 Alex.

WTF? Seriously....WTF?

And really? It's been a "tough week" for you? Ah poor baby. JFC. This **** cannot be real, can it? I'm just stuck in a really bad nightmare...right?

Hey LBJ, speak for yourself. No harm in my family from what Daryl said. Keep your idiotic ideas to yourself.

So help me, if it wasn't for Fred...…...

[ShockingButTrue]

He's just another humorless "woke" a**hole, better known as a socialist, and there are a lot of them out there these days, who knock democracy's cherished ideal of free speech. Heaven help anyone standing in their way. I look for him to double-down and accuse all of his rapidly multiplying detractors as a group of racist Tump voters, of course.

Most probably watches cnn too, and thinks the President is/was a russian spy, who's now wooing the Ukraine, all so he can build concentration camps and then afterwards bring back jim crowe.

TDS is real and the symptoms are legion...

[jdshock]

STFU 'Bron.

The guy that (maybe) graduated high school calling out the guy that has a degree from Northwestern and a MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

I'll take B for $800 Alex.

WTF? Seriously....WTF?

And really? It's been a "tough week" for you? Ah poor baby. JFC. This **** cannot be real, can it? I'm just stuck in a really bad nightmare...right?

Hey LBJ, speak for yourself. No harm in my family from what Daryl said. Keep your idiotic ideas to yourself.

So help me, if it wasn't for Fred...…...

To be clear, neither LeBron nor Daryl Morey are experts in foreign policy. Having a degree in computer science and an MBA have absolutely no impact on whether you are credible when speaking about human rights abuses and foreign policy stances. We need to stop thinking "oh this person is an engineer or business person, they must be credible on x, y, and z topics." That's absolute nonsense. And that absolutely doesn't mean swing the other way and automatically believe what someone without a degree is thinking. Both statements must be critically analyzed and evaluated on their own merits. There's zero percent chance that you--or anyone else here--would find it credible if I said "hey check it out, this MIT grad supports the BLM movement. Anyone who didn't graduate from college or who graduated from a school worse than MIT needs to STFU!"

Second, LeBron's stance is Daryl's stance. Daryl deleted the tweet and has since said he was voicing "one thought" on a "complicated event." After getting the feedback, he "had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives. I have always appreciated the significant support our Chinese fans and sponsors have provided and I would hope that those who are upset will know that offending or misunderstanding them was not my intention." LeBron said Daryl didn't consider the consequences of the tweet and that the league went through a difficult week. All of that is 100% true. Daryl (i) admits that he learned more about the situation after sending the tweet, (ii) deleted the offending tweet; and (iii) apologizes to any Chinese fans or sponsors that he offended. It was also objectively a "tough week" for the league. As I said in the other thread, they almost certainly risked losing billions of dollars from China. At the end of the day, it's an entertainment league and no (American) lives were at stake, but that's a lot of money and certainly would qualify as a tough week in my life.

Last, Daryl has not come out since and defended his statement. He deleted it. This is the NBA's official stance on the subject: it was a mistake and it should've never been said. It should not be difficult to make a decision on the China situation. Even so, it can be difficult to be an employee of an organization like the NBA and take a stance that is contrary to the organization's stance. If the NBA didn't correct Daryl or if LeBron came out and said "I agree 100% with Daryl," you can bet that several things would've happened. Daryl would've been fired (general consensus seems to be he was nearly fired regardless); China would've stopped its support of the NBA, causing ramifications to the salary cap and potential profit for team and league owners; and almost certainly nothing would've changed with the Hong Kong situation. In light of those calculations, it would be easy to respect Daryl had he said "no, I'm not going to change my opinion for monetary reasons. I support my prior statement" or whatever. Those same calculations should make it easy to understand the reasons that someone like Daryl might rescind his statement, why someone like LeBron would call Daryl out, and why someone like Kerr would remain silent.

[Kung Wu]

He thinks protesting the anthem is just fine, but having an opinion on Hong Kong .... well we should keep our mouth shut, because there could be negative consequences that we didnt think through.

[1972Shocker]

He thinks protesting the anthem is just fine, but having an opinion on Hong Kong .... well we should keep our mouth shut, because there could be negative consequences that we didnt think through.

[jdshock]

I am not sure I'd heard there were any NBA players that kneeled during the anthem. Can you please find a source where that occurred? I'm also 100% certain I haven't heard Kaepernick take a stance on the Hong Kong situation. Can you again provide more information about what he said?

All of the takes in this thread are just lacking in any kind of nuance, as per usual.

[1972Shocker]

[ShockTalk]

USA Today Sports by Dan Wolken

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/lebron-james-undermines-values-with-comments-on-daryl-morey-and-china/ar-AAINw6Z?ocid=spartandhp

[ShockTalk]

I am not sure I'd heard there were any NBA players that kneeled during the anthem. Can you please find a source where that occurred? I'm also 100% certain I haven't heard Kaepernick take a stance on the Hong Kong situation. Can you again provide more information about what he said?

All of the takes in this thread are just lacking in any kind of nuance, as per usual.

So do you agree or disagree with LeBron's take? Or non-committal?

[Awesome Sauce Malone]

So help me, if it wasn't for Fred...…...

Lol If it wasnt for Fred... .what?

[jdshock]

So do you agree or disagree with LeBron's take? Or non-committal?

I'm saying LeBron's take is entirely unsurprising. Everyone should've known that the NBA, Nike, LeBron, whoever, they all stood to gain massive amounts of money when we thought they were so liberal on certain topics. And everyone should've known that on topics such as Hong Kong those same individuals were going to prioritize their pocket books.

I think it's disgusting that the NBA would prioritize its bottom line over taking the right stance on this issue. But, again, it was easy to predict, right? This is what companies have always done. It is one of the problems with capitalism. Whatever your ultimate opinion on capitalism is, it's objectively true that profit seeking companies are going to seek profit, and we have to deal with that.

I agree with the USA Today article you posted which is that LeBron looks very foolish. LeBron is facing essentially unanimous backlash in the US over his comments. This is a problem of big businesses seeking profits as opposed to a situation where a bunch of liberals who supported Kaepernick are now also supporting China.

[WuDrWu]

I am not sure I'd heard there were any NBA players that kneeled during the anthem. Can you please find a source where that occurred? I'm also 100% certain I haven't heard Kaepernick take a stance on the Hong Kong situation. Can you again provide more information about what he said?

All of the takes in this thread are just lacking in any kind of nuance, as per usual.

You know I respect the way you think about things and go about "explaining" even though I mostly going to disagree with your stance. But your explanation is why a lot of people don't like lawyers.

You don't need 10 paragraphs to know this fiasco is wrong. Nobody cares that the GM deleted his tweet, which I'd bet he was told to do (more of the problem). The problem with lawyers is that they make easy things difficult.

When the NBA tried to "fix" the tweet, they were on the wrong side of the argument, period. Everyone that's tried to defend Adam Silver or any NBAer since then is on the wrong side of the argument. Most of us realize that. Those that don't, or want to continue to argue semantics are on the wrong side. That's it. Nothing difficult, nothing crazy.

We get that it's about money. I don't care who you are, if you get into bed with the wrong people, sometimes you get burned. If you're going to try and spin it, you're still wrong. The fact that the tweet was deleted might mean the GM wanted his job more than kowtow to China, I don't know and you don't either. But while Daryl has kept quiet, LBJ doubled down and called him out. That's his free speech, but it's also mine to call him an idiot, and yours to call me one.

I'd wager a lot more Americans would side with me, because it's easy to see right and wrong. As Mrs. Black said in John Grisham's The Rainmaker "It takes two pages to say all that?"

[ShockTalk]

I'm saying LeBron's take is entirely unsurprising. Everyone should've known that the NBA, Nike, LeBron, whoever, they all stood to gain massive amounts of money when we thought they were so liberal on certain topics. And everyone should've known that on topics such as Hong Kong those same individuals were going to prioritize their pocket books.

I think it's disgusting that the NBA would prioritize its bottom line over taking the right stance on this issue. But, again, it was easy to predict, right? This is what companies have always done. It is one of the problems with capitalism. Whatever your ultimate opinion on capitalism is, it's objectively true that profit seeking companies are going to seek profit, and we have to deal with that.

I agree with the USA Today article you posted which is that LeBron looks very foolish. LeBron is facing essentially unanimous backlash in the US over his comments. This is a problem of big businesses seeking profits as opposed to a situation where a bunch of liberals who supported Kaepernick are now also supporting China.

Thanks for your response.

And thanks for: "I think it's disgusting that the NBA would prioritize its bottom line over taking the right stance on this issue."

However, capitalism is not the problem, IMO. It's GREED. Doesn't matter whether one is conservative or liberal, right or left, Republican or Democrat. It's greed. We are seeing it action. It's when the passion for the bottom line comes before what is right.

It also happens outside of capitalism. It's when promising free this or free that to everyone just to get elected comes before what might really be best. It's when people take and take all that free stuff and don't even realize they've become dependent on the government (or a slave to the government).

[WuDrWu]

However, capitalism is not the problem, IMO. It's GREED. Doesn't matter whether one is conservative or liberal, right or left, Republican or Democrat. It's greed. We are seeing it action. It's when the passion for the bottom line comes before what is right.

It also happens outside of capitalism. It's when promising free this or free that to everyone just to get elected comes before what might really be best. It's when people take and take all that free stuff and don't even realize they've become dependent on the government (or a slave to the government).

Excellent point, and it happens in more than just money. And the fact that LBJ said and actually "thinks" that "it's been a tough week" shows how out of touch with reality he is. Our society is quick to measure IQ with the number of Twitter followers you have, and that's not going well.

[BOBB]

He's just another humorless "woke" a**hole, better known as a socialist, and there are a lot of them out there these days, who knock democracy's cherished ideal of free speech. Heaven help anyone standing in their way. I look for him to double-down and accuse all of his rapidly multiplying detractors as a group of racist Tump voters, of course.

Most probably watches cnn too, and thinks the President is/was a russian spy, who's now wooing the Ukraine, all so he can build concentration camps and then afterwards bring back jim crowe.

TDS is real and the symptoms are legion...

Far from a socialist, Lebron is showing his true capitalist colors. Effing with China effs with Lebron's money and therefore can't be tolerated. China is exporting their censorship to our shores and our corporations are accepting it. Anything for a dollar.