A miserable Game One performance against the Spurs might be the least of LeBron James’ problems. Not only is his reliance on the word “definetely” the subject of considerable conjecture, but his refusal to sign an open letter to the Chinese Government addressing their complicity in the genocide taking place in the Sudan is once again, receiving serious attention.
After being pilloried by Bloomberg’s Scott Soshnick, The Christian Science Monitor’s Jonathan Zimmerman and Slate’s Charles Pierce, James faces the wrath of the Oregonian’s John Canzano, who muses the Cavs’ superstar “has been managed and handled and packaged for eventual sale since he was 15…He’s been told what to sign, and what to think, and when to dump his agent. The Beatles would have hated this kid.”
This isn’t about whether James agrees with what’s going on in the world, or not. It’s about his refusal to participate at all. Given the opportunity to sign his teammate’s letter or stand in support of China’s decision to do business with Sudan, James demonstrated his undying loyalty to LeBron Inc. and walked the fence with a sterile, lame remark about needing more information.
Nevermind that 10 of his teammates had all they needed. Also, he waved off a question about Nike’s corporate responsibility and the work conditions of the mostly young, mostly female, mostly Asian factory employees who make the sneakers bearing James’ name.
“Nike’s a big company,” James said, “they’ll figure it out.”
As much as we wish it were true, James, who could have deep, lasting impact on this world if he so chooses, had nothing to do with Nike’s recent manifesto about corporate responsibility. And the hunch here is that he’s not ever going to choose to be socially relevant, which goes down as a woeful waste.
On Friday, James talked about jump shots and defense and basketball, the most important facets of his world. In a candid moment, the game’s best young player said that social responsibility takes a backseat to business. In fact, James said he understands his basketball career won’t last forever, and that he hopes life after the NBA will give him an opportunity to “be more of a businessman, which I can try and set things up for my family.”
Lucky for him they don’t live in Darfur.
Though Canzano makes an excellent point (ie. pretty much the same one Soshnick, Zimmerman and Pierce made previously), I continue to wonder what’s fair about holding a 22 year old (albeit a globally famous, enormously well compensated 22 year old) to a higher standard than everyone else. Has Michael Jordan signed Ira Newble’s letter? How about Dan Gilbert, Nate McMillan or David Stern?
LeBron will probably not be mistaken for Etan Thomas in the near future, though Canzano insisting James is “not ever going to choose to be socially relevant” is kind of like saying he’ll never win a ring based solely on how he played the other night. Perhaps there’s a more constructive, less grandstand-y way of trying to get James to give a hoot about the rest of the world?
I’m supremely confident had Canzano presented LeBron with a reading list (or just a few links), James would’ve been receptive. This isn’t the 1970’s anymore — we no longer have helpful organizations like the SLA brainwashing Bill Walton. Each of us, sports journalists included, has to do what we can to raise consciousness, one global icon at a time.
I have one sentence for you:
Compare Michael Jordan and LeBron James’ lack of interest in the world stage with Muhammed Ali.
I don’t give a rat’s ass about Jordan or James, and I would have no concern if either dropped off the stage and gambled away their fortunes. But Muhammed Ali? 25 years later he’s still the greatest of all time.
Because he made himself matter.
Don,
so LeBron’s no George Weah, either. But given that James is a mere 22 years old, it seems a tad early to presume he’s forever squandered all opportunities to make himself matter.
And again, if we’re gonna assail LeBron for his lack of conscience, how about the guys who benefit the most from his skill and celebrity? James has been blasted no fewer than 4 times in recent weeks by a quartet of editorials, but I’m still waiting for David Stern, Dan Gilbert or Phil Knight to be singled out for their public silence on Darfur.
How many hardcore bands put their politics on their sleeves by age 16, let alone 22? I think the reasoning that 22 seems young for James was his noted, if not infamous, lack of education. By 22 almost everyone reading this blog had taken a stand on a political or social issue. By age 22 my wife was in her second year of her PhD program.
Since I have no concern for James, I have no need to criticize him.
It may also be said that I have not been singled out on my lack of a public stance on Darfur (I am against murder in all its forms, fyi, and genocide in particular) because the spotlight is not on me. That’s the simplest answer to the Dan Gilbert question- he’s the name I don’t recognize.
But from a celebrity management point of view, the James refusal strikes the audience of someone either perilously unaware of world events or willfully trying to court all sides of political issues. Someone who is either ignorant or a phony. Semioticians are already drawing links that show the reaction against Paris Hilton is muted rage against W. Isn’t this the James issue? We are in the midst of a backlash against contentlessness.
In no ways is this positive celebrity management. Muhammad Ali stood up for what he believed in, some of which I don’t entirely believe in, and was banned from boxing and lost his passport to leave the country. In doing so he went from boxer to international superstar.
Even Barkley is starting to recognize that he made the mistake by not stepping up to become the role model that, well, Ian Mackaye was.
If you believe in the theory from Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl that in order to have a fulfilling life without neuroses (such as a gambling addiction or other addictions that plague professional sports) that one must convert suffering into a meaningful life, then one must stand up for what one believes early and often or else fall victim to a pursuit of pleasure.
This is my issue, James has shot his career in the foot in the era of the Imus and Hilton backlash. He has not yet proved he’s different than Lindsay Lohan passed out in a parking lot. He had not yet proved that his plan can with the war in Iraq.
I’ve made no comment regarding LeBron’s lack of a college education, Don, and while you and your peers might’ve have well formed opinions on everything under the sun by the time you were 16, I’m not prepared to write someone off for life just because they’ve not fully articulated their ethos by the time they were 22.
You’ve made a gambling reference in two successive posts, and I’ve yet to hear anything about LeBron having a gambling problem.
Dan Gilbert owns the Cleveland Cavaliers. He signs LeBron’s paycheck (well, some of ’em). He’s also the owner of Quicken Loans and the guy behind those horrible FatHead commericals.
Quicken is one of the largest lenders in the United States. That Gilbert’s name is less familiar to you than that of Lindsay Lohan is not surprising. I’m just wondering why there’s a different level of expectation for the 22 year old basketball player than there is for the zillionaire businessmen who profit wildly from his celebrity.
The gambling problem was a veiled reference to Michael Jordan rumors. Jordan was probably the most famous sports figure to reject all interest in political or humanitarian works and focus on himself. I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks he parlayed his fame into anything worthwhile.
I see nothing wrong with criticizing a lack of college in the same way I would criticize large credit card debt or a sloppy dresser. He had offers he turned down. Ask Bill Bradley if the degree was worth it.
I grew up in a neighborhood with many Nicarauguan and Salvadoran immigrants and to them, and in a sense to me, in the early 1970s, Roberto Clemente was a god for converting sports fame into good works. One need not give up their life to prove their fame and money wasn’t useless, but usually one has to make some kind of effort.
I suppose to a certain group, knowing the name of the owner of a second-tier city basketball team is critical. Perhaps it IS critical for reading this blog, but I have no issue with not knowing you weren’t referring to the happiness psychologist of the same name. The idea that he should be as well known as the star of Herbie 2.0: Fully Loaded, is… I mean, really, Quicken Loans? The 11th largest loan company in the US? After Countrywide and Wells Fargo and WaMu, who’s counting? Are you suggesting I don’t read Businessweek for more than Jon Fine’s column?
I think it’s all well and good that a return to childhood exists in media when one is in their 20s, I have no problem with that, and how could I? But I believe that Bill Cosby’s Culture of Low Expectations can be used to stunt the emotional growth of 22 yr olds unnecessarily. If not a lack of expectation that LeBron James shoulc/could earn money doing something that non-basketball fans (as I count myself) would recognize him for, then what is the issue? We can agree that sports stars are not paid solely to play and win games, they sell equipment, their likenesses on bobbleheads, and they exist as cultural figures. If they were paid solely to play the game then they wouldn’t be doing any commercials.
You say that American Business is not held accountable to the Darfur issue. Fair enough. I counter that celebrities use their fame for good karma every day in ways non-celebrities cannot. Celebrities can inspire others to make political reform at grass roots levels. Business people appear to have three good ways of doing that:
a. donating money at cause events
b. donating money to politicians
c. converting business ideas like the CVF franchises pharmacies in Kenya into practice.
Don
My mistake, they are CFW Pharmacies, not CVF:
http://www.cfwshops.org/
This is the point, don’t you think? Second item:
http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/dalessandro/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1179639125185810.xml&coll=1
Don,
I got the Jordan reference. But the person being criticized in this instance is LeBron. True, he’s being compared to Jordan, but dropping the bit about gambling neurosis in connection with a guy that’s never been linked to gambling is just plain weird.
The Bill Bradley comparison is nonsense. At the time he chose to attend Princeton, how many offers with there for his services as a professional baller? I have no gripe with those who choose to attend university and bypass crazy money, but if the loot’s never been on the table to begin with, the gesture in and of itself is meaningless.
Much as I appreciate the nod to Roberto Clemente — certainly by all accounts, a principled and selfless individual — it should be stressed that at the age of 22, he was a mere two seasons into his big league career. I don’t see what’s so crazy about suggesting that as LeBron nears, I dunno, his MID TWENTIES? he might actually demonstrate some semblance of social consciousness.
I mean, we can move the goalposts around as much as you want. LeBron says he needs “more information” in order to express an opinion on Darfur, and he’s dismissed as a careerist punk, not fit to carry Ali’s jock.
You, however, cannot ID LeBron’s employer — a man whose business practices have impacted no small number of not-so-rich Americans, but you wanna play the “I’m not a sports fan” card. Whatever. It’s the basketball player that’s ignorant about the outside world.
agreed, celebrities can lend their name and likeness to a cause, generate awareness, raise loot, etc. However, LeBron is hardly the only celebrity in the NBA. He’s not even the only member of his own team who bailed on Ira Newble’s letter. I have no doubt James could pique the intellectual curiousity of his fans by taking a strong stand. But David Stern’s a celebrity, too.
Johnny,
“there are more important things for a global icon to do than sell sneakers and soft drinks.”
D’Allesandro is spot on, as usual. But however much I agree that Newble deserves tons of credit for lending his name and voice to this cause, the current “let’s all dogpile LeBron” craze really leaves me cold. I mean, there are more important things for a league commissioner to do than sell sneakers and soft drinks.
Is Steve Nash a global icon? Dirk Notwitzki? Kobe Bryant? Dwayne Wade? What’s their stance on trade with China, genocide in Darfur and any other arbitrary litmus test for who does or doesn’t have a conscience. I’m dying to know.
The Bill Bradley comparison is nonsense. At the time he chose to attend Princeton, how many offers with there for his services as a professional baller? I have no gripe with those who choose to attend university and bypass crazy money, but if the loot’s never been on the table to begin with, the gesture in and of itself is meaningless.
———–
I think Bradley attended graduate school at Oxford and joined the Knicks after that. I think he postponed going pro with money on the table to do a Rhodes Scholar thingy, but that’s as I remember a 60 minutes piece from 1984.
Don,
while Bradley attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, he did complete his college eligibility at Princeton. But again, you’re moving the goalposts around when the ball’s already in the air. You can’t compare Bradley’s decision to postpone his NBA career after already graduating college with James’ NBA debut at the age of 18. Nor have you cited an example of Bill Bradley, the Crystal City Hall prospect, being offered even a fraction of what LeBron received, to skip college for the NBA.