Doug Gottlieb: “When you’re tenure is up, we look back and say ‘OK, what happened, whose fault is it?’, and you take the blame or you take the credit. Bird and Magic get ‘credit’ because under their reign and under their tenure in the 1980s the league exploded. The rivalry between the Lakers and the Celtics was re-formed, and the league went from being on tape delay for the NBA Finals to the most popular professional sport. Whether it’s the timing, the proliferation of cable television, whatever it is, Magic and Bird get credit for that. Jordan gets credit for the globalization of the game because he was the guy with the ‘Dream Team’, people wanted to ‘Be Like Man’, and made people believe he could fly. If we want to look at causes for the All-Star Game debacle and for the things that we don’t like, doesn’t LeBron get some of that blame? He absolutely does.
When he walked off the floor Sunday he basically said ‘that was bad, we gotta something about it’... What do you mean ‘we’ gotta do something? You’re the leader, you like to say this is 'your' league, and this has progressively gotten worse, not gotten better. The Spurs were the first to tap into the ‘why do we have to play our guys all the time?’, but it is during LeBron James’ reign. I know injuries and age play a factor, but can we point out that with the LA Lakers he’s played 55, 67, 45, 56, 55, and 49 games? It's a different set of rules when you’re the ‘king’, when it’s your league. That’s the league that you gotta show up to every night. You gotta kiss babies and shake hands. You gotta do all these little things you don’t wanna do. Why? Because it’s YOUR league.
When we’re looking at things to blame, it's 'how did we get here?' There have been good things that have happened while LeBron has been the king, but if we’re going to blame guys for not having any allegiance to their club – that's LeBron. If we’re going to blame the debacle that is the All-Star Game – that's LeBron. And even though LeBron played mostly a mid-to-high 70s in games in his career, when resting players has become the bane of the TV world’s existence, in the last six years he has only played more than 60 games ONCE.
Being ‘king’ of the NBA is like being President of the United States – all the good, all the bad, you catch all the blame -- and LeBron is trying to duck and dodge from the blame. The All-Star Game debacle has to be part of his legacy.”
Watch Doug Gottlieb of Fox Sports Radio, guest-hosting for Colin Cowherd on The Herd, explain why the epic failure and deterioration of the NBA’s All-Star Game has to be a stain on LeBron James’ legacy, saying the most glaring comorbidities of the era – the apathy of the All-Star Game and load management – are two issues that LeBron failed to combat as the so-called ‘King’ of the NBA.
Check out the segment above as Gottlieb compares LeBron’s standing atop the league to that of the President of the United States, saying whatever good or bad that happens during their tenure will ultimately forever be tied to their legacy.
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