Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: "With 106 million Instagram followers, making such a post is automatically politically impactful because he questions the validity of the efforts to get the country vaccinated. As is evident by some of the comments that cheer LeBron’s post, he’s given support to those not getting vaccinated, which makes the situation for all of us worse by postponing our health and economic recovery. The CDC reports that those who are unvaccinated are 9 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital and 14 times more likely to die from COVID than those vaccinated. The number rises to 20 times more likely when compared to someone who’s gotten a booster shot. By posting the uninformed meme, LeBron has encouraged vaccine hesitancy which puts lives and livelihoods at risk."
Doug Gottlieb: “Lebron’s response is the worst word salad I’ve ever heard. It means he’s totally backing down, and this is ‘the book report on the book you didn’t read.’ Does Lebron think we’re all idiots? I said this about Aaron Rodgers, and I’ll say it about Lebron: you’re siding with people who are denying the science, and that’s dangerous. If he really wants to ask questions, he has the power to get in contact with legitimate people who can give him answers."
Rob Parker: “I think he believes people of his status can say anything, and people will just accept it and won’t push back or question it. I think Kareem was right in calling him out. You can’t be putting out this misinformation calling COVID the same as every other sickness. Ask Karl Anthony-Towns, who lost six family members to this virus.”
Listen to Doug Gottlieb and Rob Parker call out LeBron James for a controversial Spiderman meme he posted on Instagram last week that appeared to compare the similarities between COVID-19, common colds, and the flu.
Detractors of the post were critical of LeBron, as it appeared to downplay the veracity of the deadly disease in general, one that has helped claim the lives of over 800,000 Americans, while proponents applauded James for possibly bringing to light the more benign effects of the new omicron strain, and the need for less strict lockdown measures.
The post has over 2.4 million likes, with even celebrities the likes of Jamie Foxx commenting 'gotta point haha'.
James has been publicly frustrated with the NBA’s COVID protocols and missed a game earlier this month after testing positive. It was later revealed that he had received a false-positive test.
NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar went so far as to say that LeBron’s Spiderman meme was a ‘blow to his worthy legacy’, and questioned whether James’ meme would cause harm in the Black community by influencing his followers to not get future vaccinations and boosters.
Here was LeBron’s response to Kareem.
"No, I don't have a response to Kareem at all. And if you saw the post and you read the tag, you know that I'm literally, honestly asking, 'help me out.' Help me kind of figure it all out, like we're all trying to figure this pandemic out. We're all trying to figure out COVID and the new strain. And the flu, I think people forgot about the flu. People like literally forgot about the flu during these times, like that's still going around. It's flu season, so people have forgot about the flu. People have forgot about common colds. That happens, especially with a lot of our kids that's in school. My daughter is in first grade, so a lot of these kids are getting like common colds and getting the flu. But no, I don't have any response to Kareem. No. At all.'”
Check out the segment above as Gottlieb and Parker discuss LeBron’s comments.
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