Well, the title really says it all: LeBron James is a coward who doesn’t care about fans.
Want some background? Well here you go: If he did care, he would enter the Slam Dunk competition next year at NBA all-star weekend. There’s really no reason that he shouldn’t.
As he has demonstrated in his pre-game warmup dunks, he has a massive bag of tricks that would likely win the contest. So, it’s not like he would be embarrassed at the comp. In fact, thanks to the way that fans vote for the winner, he could just throw down some average dunks and likely win.
To sweeten the pot, Magic Johnson has offered $1 million to James to compete. How can you turn that down? While it’s a fortune to most common folk like us, it may be small beans to the superstar, who likely collects around $100 million a year when you figure in endorsements. Turning down that amount of money would be like big-timing the world, saying that he’s better than them.
What Magic should have done is offered the million to James’ charity. How on earth could James tell the people that he’s supporting that he turned down a million dollars because he didn’t feel like throwing down four dunks?
It’s not like there’s a risk for injury either. Nobody in the history of the dunk off has been injured during the competition. I’m doubtful that a physical specimen like James is going to get hurt doing this.
James can’t use the excuse that he wants the weekend off either. Hell is more likely to freeze over than James is to miss out on being voted to the all-star game. And he also has shown up to watch all-star Saturday night every year since I can remember.
Joining the dunk comp would also bring some big star power to the event, which it sorely lacked this year. In recent seasons we’ve seen top players like Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin and Vince Carter enter the competition.
Some of the all-time greats have won the dunk off too. Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, two guys that James is chasing on the legacy metre, have won the competition. Jordan even used the competition as a launching pad to fame.
The only thing that James is doing by not competing is showing his middle finger to the fans that want to see him in it. And if he has a good reason as to why he doesn’t want to join, I haven’t heard it. And if he offers some sort of half-hearted “I don’t feel like it,†reason, he’s just proving that he feels that he’s too good for us to watch him dunk.
If he cared about the fans and if he cared about the game of basketball, James would stop being such a coward and just dunk already.
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