Lebron James got triggered last night. Video has gone viral this morning showing the NBA star rushing over to a pair of court-side fans to get them ejected. The game was in Indiana, though, the arena officials quickly followed the dictates of “King James.”
Some immediately speculated that some kind of racial insult had been hurled, but there’s no evidence of that, and if that had happened, we’d know about it by now. Rather, it seems like Lebron took offense to some obscenities being thrown around. Imagine him having to deal with Spike Lee in the 90s?
Be sure to watch until the end because the lady who is booted is absolutely based, mocking Lebron while being escorted out.
Now, full disclosure, there is a single claim from a random, low-follower Twitter account (whose avatar is him smoking weed) that claims that the woman said she hopes Lebron’s son gets into a car accident. Several of the sports and news sites are using that as proof Lebron was justified. If that happened, that would have been crossing the line and justified the ejection of the fans. Yet, color me extremely skeptical because not even Lebron made that claim after the game, and given this is the same guy who has never shied away from making detailed claims, I find it hard to believe he suddenly wouldn’t here.
The video had #LeSnitch trending on Twitter while the memes began to flow.
Of course, the biggest counter to what Lebron did came from people pointing out his absolute subservience to China. He can get really upset at some fans heckling him, but he’s got nothing to say about the communists committing genocide while Lebron and the NBA rake in Chinese cash. I think it’s a fair critique. If you can’t be bothered to speak up and take action over something so consequential, you shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously when you cry about fans being mean.
Here’s the thing. It’s just a bad look for a player to get involved with fans like this, no matter what was said. I leave open the possibility that they said something so awful that they needed to be booted, though, I’d put a lot of money on that being reputably reported by now if it happened (or at least claimed by Lebron himself during his presser). Still, fans heckling players at NBA games is hardly new. This makes Lebron look like he’s got all the fire and passion in the world when it comes to being slighted or commenting on the Kyle Rittenhouse case, but that he can’t muster a fraction of that energy to speak out in defense of truly marginalized groups in China.