I have always liked Lebron James.
Okay, I lied. Six words deep and I’m already full of shit. I have known of Lebron James for fifteen years of my life, and I’ve liked him for twelve out of those fifteen years. My reasons for hating him were not that logical, mostly that I’m a Bulls fan, I cheer against Miami sports teams in everything, and I think Cleveland exists so the rest of America can feel a little less about things.
I hate how everything with Lebron has to be so binary. I’m writing this because life is not binary, good and evil do not exist. Star Wars and Harry Potter have ruined your brains *1. It seems like half the country hates Lebron beyond belief, they cheer for him to fail greatly in front of the whole world for reasons that almost certainly don’t exist. The other half of basketball fans cheer for Lebron and see no flaws in him whatsoever. If Lebron kidnapped schoolchildren and dunked on them to death these people would blame it the media. Lebron can do no wrong to this half of the basketball world. I hate how Lebron is discussed by the masses; it feels as though like no one exists in the gray … Except me, because I live in the gray area *2.
1. My brain is different. My brain was ruined in second grade when I memorized every word to 50 Cent’s Get Rich Or Die Trying.
2. This is why I’m never going to be happy. “Happy people are extremists incapable of understanding complexity.” -Freud *3.
3. I made that up. The quote being from Freud part. Freud didn’t say that I did. But it seemed like it was legit coming from Freud, didn’t it?
I’ll never forget the first time he was on my tv. He was this cool looking high school basketball genius that was on a segment on SportsCenter on a particular Saturday morning when I happened to be watching. What I remember thinking was that he was very cool, and also I was amazed at how good he was. They had all these highlights of him throwing down dunks and he immediately made me think of Michael Jordan. It wasn’t just that he was so obviously great, even to an eight-year-old. It was flashy, he did things in a way that very few can. He jumped off the TV screen in the same way Beyonce does when she’s performing. People often talk about how flashiness is overrated and it’s all about substance, blah, blah, *insert bland coach-speak. Flashiness in the case of Lebron and Beyoncé should not be undervalued. We’re flawed beings with eyes that matter. There’s a certain beauty watching Lebron play basketball that you don’t get from most everyone else. He popped off my TV screen on that day in 2003 and thankfully hasn’t left since. Flashiness is particularly important when you’re a kid, which explains Lebron’s wide appeal to children that’s surpassed every athlete except for Michael Jordan. That’s why Tim Duncan isn’t loved by anyone my age outside of San Antonio *4.
4. Probably inside San Antonio too, Ginobili's hair at one point in time rendered him more interesting. Is that superficial? Yes, it is. Am I serious about that hair comment? Only sort of.
To put it plain and simple: Lebron was cool. In that same SportsCenter segment, high school Lebron was driving a Hummer. I immediately decided I wanted a Hummer because Lebron had a Hummer and that meant I was finally going to have the upper hand in being the coolest kid in Mrs. Kunkel’s 2nd Grade Class *5. Additionally, whoever was interviewing Lebron (I don’t recall whom) was riding with him in his Hummer, and Lebron was expressing to said interviewer how cool Jay Z was (he was playing Jay-Z in his Hummer during the interview). At that moment I decided I was going to become a Jay-Z fan. I did, and am still a faithful Jigga Stan to this day. I would be remised if I didn’t give Lebron credit for turning me into a Jay-Z fan at 8 years old *6. I also think the distinction to be made in my mind is this: this is the fundamental reason we care about people who we do not know; we don’t care about them that much as people, but figurative chess pieces that help us understand the world better; and we all want to understand the world better. For me, Lebron is a bridge to Jay-Z, Jay-Z is a bridge to the early years when I first started consuming and caring about music. Music helps me make sense of the world, aka, we’re all connected; because of The Black Album (I’m only kind of serious). (I could have made a “Moment of Clarity” pun there, but puns are for suckers). In addition to being a direct connection to Jay-Z Lebron is a direct connection to Kanye West.
5. This isn’t logical, I agree. However, one who uses logic to understand pop culture will always be wrong. Pop culture isn’t logical, and that’s why it remains interesting. Math is logical, popular culture is philosophy. And honestly, do you know anyone that likes math where you're like, “I need to hang out with them!” Math teachers are nice people but they don’t have friends. That’s just how the universe works 101.
6. Being a Jay-Z fan as an 8-year-old in 2003 isn’t strange at all. It’s only strange if you consider I was a white boy surrounded by people listening to Good Charlotte.
This is why we care about things that otherwise don’t seem important. Popular culture and its most prominent figures are important because they matter, and they matter because in our twisted storytelling narrative to make sense of everything western culture connections and stories and the larger ideas of who people are, are what bind us together as people. These are the things we think about to distract from the fact that the world is crazy out there; we’re running out of water, and if we don’t have any water we won’t have and alcohol and if we don’t have any alcohol people will slow down and accurately assess their lives and they’ll kill themselves. We’re ignoring the pending doom because Lebron likes Jay-Z, Jay-Z is like Kanye, Kanye is like Michael Jordan, and Michael Jordan is the only thing my parents and I can agree on anymore (Michael Jordan is the only person anyone can agree on anymore; Michael Jordan is the preeminent pop culture figure of all time, this is not debatable).
What’s important here isn’t what’s happened to me though, it’s to recognize that this is the true power of Lebron James. If it wasn’t for Lebron professing his love for Jay-Z in his Hummer that day I would’ve veered toward that strange Good Charlotte/Blink 182 route that most of my white contemporaries chose at that stage of the game. I’d have pins in my black jeans and at least two tattoos above my belly button. On top of that, if it wasn’t for Lebron professing his love for Jay-Z that day on SportsCenter I wouldn’t be writing this about Lebron James. Which is amazing if you think about it; maybe the truly indisputable power of Lebron is that he ignites thoughts, conversations, realizations, screaming matches at bars, and households, and prisons, and Targets, and black tops about sports and popular culture at large that end up leaving us with more questions than answers which in totality always wind up leading us back to talking about Lebron James. It’s the most indirect/direct route ever invented. Lebron’s entire life seems like VH1 decided to adapt that Robert Frost poem about taking the road less traveled into a documentary about the best basketball player of a generation. Nobody better encapsulates the America that I’ve grown up in than Lebron *7. Which I’ve realized is both good and bad; on the surface I hate Lebron but deep down, I really do like him and I’ve enjoyed watching him succeed in the peculiar ways that he has.
