LeBron James: How Walt Frazier’s comments about him affects the NBA

LeBron James was criticized by Walt Frazier during Sunday’s game between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks. We dig into the comments and how it affects the basketball world.

Something funny happened on Sunday afternoon when LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers played my favorite team, the New York Knicks.

It was a game that meant absolutely nothing unless you had Zion Williamson on the brain. Any NBA team not playing on Saturday, April 14th, 2019 and beyond will be making offseason plans based around this one player.

The game lived up to its billing. It was notoriously boring (Ever doze out watching a game you should be covering? True story…that was me!), full of bad basketball and most NBA fans would forget as soon as the final buzzer sounded.

The funny thing that happened was history was made in this game! Not that the Knicks swept the Lakers in the season series or that LeBron James got his lunch handed to him with a stare down in the final seconds by Mario Hezonja.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1107363178751709185

It wasn’t about LeBron James basically shooting the Lakers out of the game missing 11-of-15 shots in the fourth quarter, marking the worst shooting quarter in LeBron James’ career (To anyone who thinks this history…it’s not! Futility doesn’t count in my book!).

It wasn’t even the 13-1 collapse down the stretch that shows the complete embarrassment Lakers fans can’t even pin on Jim Buss or Mitch Kupchak.

It’s the one comment that an NBA Hall of Famer made that will change the landscape of not only the Los Angeles Lakers but the NBA and LeBron James.

The NBA love/hate civil war surrounding LeBron James has officially begun. Now LeBron James conversations will not be about his position on the Mount Rushmore of greats. The narrative is concerning if LeBron James a good enough Laker for the future. Then it conversation changes to who is the new face of the NBA.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, perhaps?

Walt Frazier made his opinion known while the camera was focusing on LeBron James sitting at the end of the bench during a timeout. This is nothing new due to the fact that Lake Show Life has shown so many instances of this practice that the site should have it’s own Instagram page.

I sat back the last couple of days and watched TV analysts go back and forth on Walt Frazier’s opinion and to be honest, some of the comments bordered on disrespect. At that point, I realized that this is going past the hardwood into the boardroom of certain media stations and NBA offices.

When I started writing for this website, I was asked by my mentors was I ready to deal with the backlash of criticizing the most powerful player in the NBA. I said yes.

But, now I understand how naive I was when I answered the question. I faced backlash from many LeBron fans and apologists at the beginning of the season. It wasn’t pretty and there were insults.

Walt Frazier basically echoed what I and some other brave writers stated about LeBron James all year long. The difference was the platform of what was said and who said it.

It’s one thing to hear a narrative from a writer on Lake Show Life, whose statements would be considered “hating”. It’s another thing to hear it from an NBA icon who is a Hall of Famer in front of potentially millions of fans on TV.

But to be clear here, Walt Frazier is absolutely right.

LeBron James does not care. If anyone had paid any attention to his actions up to this point, you would agree with him. But this is not about narratives. It’s about a corporate business plan that may have to change. Let’s go back to where all this started.

Walt Frazier shocks the NBA world with questioning LeBron James’ commitment

Walt Frazier has been doing color commentary for the New York Knicks since 1987. The language he uses to call the games is about as colorful and different as the outfits that he wears to the game. I mean sometimes you need a dictionary and a thesaurus to figure out some of the words that come out of his mouth.

After watching a couple of hours of Knicks telecasts his commentary can have you thinking you’re in a Rush Hour movie with Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. 

Well everyone heard this statement. It was clear and to the point.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1107320952755548162

The important words that set everything off…

"“When you’re the face of the NBA, you should be more a part of your team… And right now you see he doesn’t really care.”"

Most paid attention to the words “doesn’t really care”. The important words for the NBA is “face of the NBA”.

You see, LeBron James is connected to the NBA in many aspects that transcend past the Lakers. The NBA financial spreadsheet is connected to him as well. Casual fans are very important to the NBA. It’s not a good look for the face of the league not to care.

Then in the next broadcast, while the Knicks were getting destroyed by the Toronto Raptors, Walt Frazier clarified his remarks about the remarks that sparked the media firestorm.

Bring your thesaurus folks, there are some big words in here.

"“You’re above that, you’re better than that. You can’t be like the proletariat, you’re The King,” Frazier said during Monday’s MSG telecast of Knicks against Toronto. “That’s the title he wanted. People say he’s like our Muhammad Ali. He speaks for black people. He has a school where he’s teaching kids to do the right thing.” “My thing is the NBA is like the Olympics, there’s a torch that is passed,” Frazier said. “From Russell to Chamberlain to… So when you’re the King and LeBron is the King and the best player in the game, you can’t be like a common player. Like if that was some other player I wouldn’t have said anything. But when you’re the face of the league man, you can’t do what other people do. You have to do the right thing. And millions of kids that saw that will say, well if LeBron did that it’s okay for me to do that. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”"

This shows how much times have changed over the landscape of the NBA. Number one, this really shouldn’t shock Walt Frazier. LeBron James has other memorable bench moments in Madison Square Garden.

Remember the infamous water bottle flipping contest with Kyrie Irving back in the day playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers when things were good?

Number two, how the media took this statement and ran with it. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, former NBA player Stephen Jackson, Ice Cube and other NBA analysts were all over the networks with their opinion. LeBron James is experiencing the other end of the spectrum when it comes to the superstar spotlight.

Let’s start with a figure of LeBron James past.

Damon Jones makes the rounds of ESPN in the defense of LeBron James

Damon Jones made back to back appearances on ESPN’s show “Get Up” in defense of LeBron James and openly criticized Walt Frazier for his comments.

If you listen to the defense that Damon Jones is using right here, he is basically telling you why the Lakers are out of the playoffs and why the locker room is in total disarray. The common argument that any LeBron James apologist will use is stats and the number of minutes being played.

Sure, LeBron James dropped 33 points in a so-called “meaningless” game. But we all know how the game ended. Forget the blocked shot. LeBron James missed two step-back 20 footers and got his shot blocked on a driving layup. Instead of getting back on defense, he argued with the referees looking for a call.

Statistics have nothing to do with setting an example for the team that you are supposed to be leading. This is a huddle where teams get instructions on what is supposed to be executed next.

The players that are not playing at the time should at least be engaged. But this is not about the players for LeBron because 2/3 of this team will be gone anyway. This is about distancing himself from the chaos he created.

Jalen Rose made it clear about what this is all about which makes this defiant act more egregious.

LeBron James is showing total disrespect to Luke Walton and his position as the head coach. Is this shocking? No. Lake Show Life covered this in the first 25 games of the season when it was reported that LeBron James was ignoring Luke Walton’s play calls from the sidelines.

Back then, when the Lakers were winning, it was blown off as “James being James”. Now that the Lakers are in danger of not even winning another game this season, all of his “habits” that Damon Jones is talking about here is being called out.

Those habits are what got James and the Lakers in trouble. In the Eastern Conference, LeBron had the chance to coast and pick it up in the second half of the season. Plus, what gets lost in the mix was the front office always coming through with under the radar moves at the trade deadline to make a difference.

In Miami, it was Pat Riley. In Cleveland, it was David Griffin.

In the Western Conference, LeBron found out that practice would not work and the story became about what the problem was. Walt Frazier just pointed out one of the many problems that are evident.

The frustration is not only with the Lakers and LeBron James folks!

LeBron James out of the NBA playoffs leaves questions

Right now, fans are just in a daze knowing that a LeBron James led basketball team is not going to be in the playoffs. The frustration goes far past the hardwood. Think about what ESPN, TNT and other NBA networks are going through having to change marketing strategies because their biggest star is out of the postseason.

Here’s a nugget of information for Lakers fans to think about. You will hear the same narrative of the Lakers being in 4th place on Christmas Day. Let’s look deeper, shall we?

The Lakers had a very soft schedule up until that point. The networks usually schedule the most appealing matchups for after the Super Bowl. Those happen to be the tougher games on the Lakers schedule.

Now that the Lakers season is basically done, networks like ESPN are left to defend LeBron for a couple of reasons, one being they base a lot of their NBA coverage around LeBron James.

Number two is that they still need eyes to watch the rest of the Lakers games this season. Then they have to get the casual NBA fan to tune in for the playoffs.

With NBA ratings dropping this year, ESPN, has to look at the bottom line and be worried being the network that is carrying the Western Conference playoffs.

Stephen A. Smith was very opinionated about Frazier’s comments.

Whether you like LeBron James or not, he represents a lot of money for a lot of people. This includes ESPN, who paid billions of dollars for the rights to Western Conference playoff games. Tony Kornheiser said himself that this is a “LeBron-centric” network.

The NBA has long attached the phrase “The Best Player in the World” to LeBron James. They have used him as the marketing engine much like they did Michael Jordan in the 90s.

The problem with this business model is that the best player in the world is supposed to win. Jordan dominated the NBA to the point that no one even had to say it. He won championships throughout the decade beating the best the NBA had to offer.

LeBron James went to an iconic franchise in the Lakers and the team imploded. The Lakers fans are frustrated and want to know why. A statement of LeBron James not caring provides some insight into what is going on possibly behind the scenes no matter if it’s true or not.

Long story short, LeBron James has been the topic of conversation for so many sports media for 15 years going into the playoffs, especially the last eight. Now we all have to find something different to talks about during the NBA playoffs.