LeBron Never Forgets to Keep Himself in Mind

Photo Credit: Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

You might have heard that LeBron James was caught in a lie the other day. It really wasn’t a big deal, though a lot of people are going to kill him for it. At most, he’s guilty of some moderate exaggeration. That, or his mind is starting to slip a little in his old age…

No, there’s actually a much bigger problem at play, and it has nothing to do with any lie or exaggeration or misremember-izing.

The problem is that LeBron can’t help but make everything about himself.

Here’s the situation: on the first of the month, Takeoff, a member of the rap-trio Migos, was shot and killed outside a bowling alley. In a tribute to the late-rapper, LeBron wore Takeoff’s signature outfit to Sunday night’s game versus the Cleveland Cavaliers, complete with a silver Jesus medallion. That would have been a fitting enough tribute. However…

LeBron just couldn’t help himself. In his postgame press conference, he claimed to have been listening to Migos since 2010, which is, unfortunately, before they even released their first mixtape in 2011. He claimed that none of his teammates knew about Migos before him, which may or may not be true. More importantly, who cares?

Who cares how long you were listening to Migos? Who cares if you knew them before anyone? What was the point of all this?

In fairness to LeBron, I don’t think he meant to lie. I believe he was listening to Migos before any of his teammates. We’ve all met that person who loves to be the first one to tell you about this amazing, new band that no one’s ever heard. Why wouldn’t LeBron be that guy?

The truth is that this all boils down to LeBron making everything about LeBron. It’s just, “Look at me, look how much I care about Takeoff, look how much effort I put into all this, look how I thought to dress up like him and no one else did, look how far I’ll go just to prove a point.”

It’s such a waste of time and energy. Now, we have to wait for the next grandiose, completely overdone gesture from the next celebrity who’s desperate for social media to know what a thoughtful, caring, politically-correct empath I am. I’m sure Kim Kardashian is preparing to record herself making love to a wax mannequin of Takeoff as we speak.

It’s disappointing. There are so many ways LeBron could have done this without coming off as a complete jackass.

He could have just worn the stupid outfit and talked about how tragic the situation was. He could have spoken out against gun violence. He could have tried to make a difference. Instead, as always, he made everything about himself.