Isiah Thomas defends LeBron James; Says people are jealous of Miami Heat superstar – NBA News
LeBron James has a new friend - Isiah Thomas.
The former Detroit Pistons guard has come to the defence of King James, saying that the constant negative attention focused on the Miami Heat super star stems from the fact that LeBron is more successful than people want him to
be.
Thomas is no stranger to controversy or criticism himself. During the late 80’s and early 90’s, his team were the scorn of the league with their physical style and mean tactics. The so called “Bad Boys” of the league won two NBA
World Championships, but were never fan favourites like the other big teams of that era - the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Isiah never really cared of the opinions of other people and while talking to the Sun Sentinel, he said LeBron shouldn’t either. He was a very successful basketball player and that was the only reason why people had turned on him.
"It kind of comes with the territory when you're really good," Thomas said. "Nobody cares about the loser. Everybody likes the loser.”
"Some people are not going to like you because you are successful and I think LeBron has been extremely successful since high school and Wade has been successful and I think those guys will continue to be successful. And with their
success, there are going to be some people who are upset with that." Thomas argued.
There is no denying that many fans can turn on a player if he is successful, but with James perhaps some of the negativity is a consequence of his own poor judgement.
When he left the Cleveland Cavaliers, people anticipated a backlash, but nothing of the scale of what actually took place. There is no denying that the reaction was exaggerated by LeBron antics on the live national broadcast labelled
“The Decision”.
One bad decision followed another when James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, the new Big Three, celebrated on stage at their presentation in Miami. LeBron took his talents to South Beach, but also took a lot of hostility from the
NBA fans.
All this combined with the fact that the Heat out of nowhere became the team to beat and the new power house of the league, added fodder to the fire.
LeBron’s P.R. team also failed miserably. Nobody is perfect and James certainly has his flaws. However the fact that he is a genuinely nice person, friendly, helpful to youngsters and is involved with a number of philanthropic
endeavours was not brought to public’s attention as much as it should have been.
That really cost the Chosen One and now he needs certificates from guys who themselves were never liked much.
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