LeBron James and this Face of the League Problem
Don't blame Chuck and Shaq for the audience preference
The Lakers are having a good week or so, having snagged Luka Dončić and incorporated him while maintaining an oddly stingy level of defense. Then, out of nowhere, LeBron James complained about what a sorry lot top NBA superstars have in life. After a victory over Anthony Edwards’ Minnesota Timberwolves, James spoke on the peril of Edwards potentially becoming the “face of the league.”
Why do you wanna be the face of the league when all the people that cover our game and talk about our game on a day to day basis shit on everybody? Obviously, I didn't ask [to be the face of the league]. I feel Ant. I understand. This is weird energy when it comes to that.
I am with Jay Caspian Kang here.
I wrote a book about modern NBA superstar unhappiness, and have thought about this topic a lot. It was just hard to fathom how certain players I covered, who were blessed with immense status and wealth, were more unhappy than I was as a beat reporter schlub, chasing them around the country on 6 AM Southwest flights. An NBA star has the life kids dream about and yet, as NBA commissioner Adam Silver himself confessed, are often bizarrely, profoundly unhappy.
This speaks to the broader human condition and how elusive happiness can be regardless of status. The NBA is its own particular case, though. Here, in this era, we’ve a toxic mix of, “soft official media,” combined with, “ruthless unofficial media.” It’s a bad combination, and it yields tiresome stars.
The NBA superstar receives deference from professional media outside of maybe a few panelists on cable talk shows, but has every aspect of his career dissected and disrespected live in the informal social media world. They’re officially blamed for almost nothing and unofficially blamed for almost everything.
There are many reasons for why official NBA media is soft, but there’s one obvious factor, ironically captured by LeBron’s publicized insistence that the opposite is true.