Skip Bayless Unloads on LeBron's 'Pathetically Wrong' Behavior at Son's Game
Human Hot Take Machine Skip Bayless, president of the LeBron James Haters Society that he is, took another opportunity to spout off about how something James did was pearl-clutchingly terrible for the sport of basketball.
Specifically, LeBron took the floor before a game involving his son Bronny’s North Coast Blue Chips and put on a free-with-ticket-purchase slam dunk exhibition to the delight of the crowd.
It was a fantastic show for everyone who loves the pure joy of basketball.
LeBron was throwing it DOWN with Bronny and the Blue Chips during a pregame hoop sesh 👑 pic.twitter.com/WRzt62ZoXM
— SLAM HS Hoops (@SLAM_HS) July 28, 2018
Bayless, whose allergy to joy is on the same level as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s allergy to common sense, chirped his indignation.
In addition, he comically missed the point of LeBron the Elder’s exhibition.
"What if Barry Bonds at age 13 had been taking batting practice with his teammates, and all of a sudden Bobby Bonds … steps into the cage and starts jacking 400-ft home runs?"
— @RealSkipBayless reacts to LeBron putting on a dunk show at his son's AAU game pic.twitter.com/Pl3C9VxuXJ
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) July 30, 2018
Quoth Bayless:
“Finally, after 15 seasons, LeBron James finally participated in and won a dunk contest … against 13-year-olds, against seventh-graders! Before his son’s game. And I’m saying when I saw this last night, ‘What are you doing, LeBron?’ I nearly fell off my chair when I thought was this somehow Photoshopped-CGI-‘Mission Impossible’ stuff. No, it happened!
“This was just so pathetically wrong on so many levels because first of all, his namesake son, 13-year-old LeBron James Jr., is obviously trying to make his own way in basketball. He’s trying to make a name for himself. And all of the sudden, his father is in their layup line doing contest dunks — not just shooting layups like the kids are shooting. He’s doing contest dunks.
“And I’m thinking, ‘What if Barry Bonds at age 13 had been taking batting practice with his 13-year-old teammates, and all of a sudden Bobby Bonds, who was a great player, steps into the cage … and starts jacking 400-foot shot home runs? And said, “Woo, look at me.”‘ What would you say? You’d say, ‘Get out of his way. Let him be Barry.'”
Shannon Sharpe, whom Fox Sports 1 dragooned into the role formerly occupied by Stephen A. Smith on ESPN’s “First Take” show, tried to talk some sense into his colleague.
Sharpe explained that LeBron was just trying to get Bronny hyped up, show him his bloodline, give his friends a free show.
And the next day, Bronny paid tribute to his father with his first caught-on-video monster jam.
YOUNG KING BOUNCING 👑
Bronny just banged his first-ever dunk‼️ pic.twitter.com/NwFy7TeunY
— SLAM HS Hoops (@SLAM_HS) July 29, 2018
What’s more, when it comes to sons paying tribute to fathers, did Skip miss the 2018 dunk contest at NBA All-Star Weekend?
Like father, like son!
Larry Nance Jr. (@Larrydn22) pays tribute to his father, who won the inaugural NBA Dunk Contest in 1984, with his "rock-the-cradle" dunk! pic.twitter.com/6vvufJ2zeU
— Timeless Sports (@timelesssports_) February 18, 2018
More than any other sport except for baseball, the NBA is all about honoring tradition, paying respect to those who came before and trying to build on their accomplishments.
It’s why guys like Bill Russell are still in the news even today, looked up to by players who pattern their own movement for social justice after the civil rights movement that Russell participated in in the ’60s.
It’s why any player in the league today does some variation on Nance’s dunk or Dr. J’s free throw takeoff.
Bronny James’ first dunk was patterned after one that his father pioneered.
Skip Bayless so thoroughly failed to understand the culture of basketball that, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, he went on national television and embarrassed himself.
Maybe the next time talking heads want to discuss LeBron James, they can focus less on him getting a bunch of 13-year-olds fired up by giving them the best seat in the house to a show and more on him opening up a STEM-related school to try and reverse the culture of poverty in his hometown of Akron, Ohio.
LeBron James Jr. will be his own man someday, when he makes his debutante-ball showing in college or throws down his first dunk, possibly on the same team as his dad, in the NBA in about five or six years.
And Skip Bayless will surely be there to find some reason to complain about it.
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