His actual quote

"At the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live"

Why is it that people today think they can escape criticism just by calling someone a "hater"?

The problem with LeBron James is his mentality. He doesn't want to be the star. He doesn't have the drive, the determination. He doesn't have the 'it's all on me' attitude.

At the end of the day, he is not comparable to Michael Jordan. I think he doesn't really care.

He is happy being with his friends in Wade & Bosh.

During the final series, we didn't see his inner cav where he'd go to the basket like a madman, or take those ridiculous shots that somehow went in. He wasn't forced to be 'the man' in Miami.

What did we see? We saw him give up perfectly open shots when the game was on the line. We saw him take a few dribbles into the foul line, go 'oh crap' and pass it out.

LeBron does not have that killer mentality, ultimately he is brilliantly skilled, but he doesn't compare to Jordan and Byrant for the sheer mentality and ability to bring it on big games. LeBron is far too happy to pass it off and let someone else do the work when the going gets tough or the game is on the line.

I like the fact he's so able to work with other stars, but it is frustrating as hell when he is too scared to use his talent.

LeBron is too nice, he needs to be a bit more selfish, he needs to drive to the basket no matter how many defenders there are, and he needs to take those ridiculous shots that any other player would be benched for. I remember when watching the Cavs, there would be games which had the total wow factor. I couldn't believe what i was seeing from him to the point i'd get off the couch.

That's not happening in Miami. LeBron needs to change his attitude, become the man on the throne, not the man serving it.

LeBron's behaviour and response at the after-game press conference was an absolute disgrace. No class whatsoever.

Great post K.E.T!

Yep, K.E.T has stated my opinion on LBJ perfectly. Well said!

If Lebron doesn't want to be the man, then why would he get "the chosen one" tattooed across his chest, and why does he refer to himself as The King? It seems the way he perceives himself is not the way he carries himself.

It was pretty obvious at the end of the game, Wade stayed on the court congratulating the Mav's..LeBron ran and hid in the locker room to avoid being a good sport.
The guy has talent, but he is an arrogant hack. To have to claim our lives suck compared to his shows he probaly doesnt have any bloody idea of the real world, the poorest people in the world are generally the happiest!! Ive never had a item in my life other than people that made me happy, one day he will realise this.

LeBron IS the chosen one. He has been blessed with extraordinary physical gifts. As is often the way, however, these things have a way of evening themselves out, for as gifted as he is physically he is limited mentally - and maybe because of his physical gifts.

Here is my Theory C (thanks Bill Simmons for Theories A and B) - LeBron, largely by virtue of his physical talents, has never learnt, nor needed, to compete. At High School nobody ever challenged him. Straight from there to the Cavs where nobody ever expected him to win - everything was on the up ....UNTIL he reached the Finals and something was on the line.

If you recall, down the stretch in Game 6 against Dallas, Dallas got the lead out to 12. The game was gone and only a Reggie Miller moment (or 18 seconds in Reggie Time) would save them. The pressure was off - he could only be a hero but in attempting to be a hero he wouldn't fail (becasue nobody expected him to win). Bang - he hits his first 3 of the fourth quarter since is started being important - except it isn't important any more. Now we're at 9 and another three makes an impossible comeback only improbable. Clang!

That 15 seconds summed up LeBron for me. Capable of almost anything on the court - except doing the important things at the important time.

Down the other end - open 3 to get the Fat Lady warming up, a man with about 25% of LeBron's gifts nails the dagger.

Bill Simmons summed it up well - Bill Russell was about winning, Kobe is about dominating (and winning often results) but LeBron is about amazing (and winning is largely irrelevant).

Great post ankles.

The Finals proved one thing to me.

Lebron James is a physically gifted athlete and has an extremely diverse array of basketball skills. However, he lacks a specialty that could make him a go-to player.

He is not as strong a jump shooter as other go-to guys in the league like Nowitzki, Durant, Wade, Bryant. He doesn't have a strong (if any) post game. He's not an amazing free throw shooter. He can get to the basket through brute force and he is quick, but defenders can read him fairly easily .

What Lebron James is, he is a Pippen-like player in that he's got many excellent skills and can create for his team mates. He's a decent scorer. He's great on transition offense, and can get back quickly on transition defense.

However, he's not your teams go-to guy. Feel free to disagree; yes I realise he won 2 MVPs but remember, those are regular season awards. 60 wins means nothing if you don't end up with that ring. Your real go to guy wins it for you in the clutch; your Jordans, Birds, Kobes etc. Until I see him prove otherwise, LBJ is just an "excellent" player, not a go to player and championship winner.

+1 to Bobby and ankles

+2 to Bobby and ankles. I too have been seeing lebron as the do it all sidekick rather than money time scorer for some time now. To some extent, I think he has played that way this season too. He has often deferred to wade in money time. In game 6 the problem was that wade could not get it going and had a couple of turnovers that absolutely killed them. It's funny that virtually noone in the media has focussed on wades 4th quarter which has been completely forgotten about amidst all the lebron bashing!

While I agree on most points, to start bashing Wade, after Game 6 would've been ridiculous. He had one bad game the whole series (was MVP material before that night), and even still his game was better than LBJ's.

He was still willing to take the big shot, even though they weren't falling, because the man who is supposedly so "Unstoppable", didn't dare go anywhere near the ball, let alone drive to the hole.

If I'm LeBron, and I see that D-Wade's shots aren't going, and I'm in Game 6 about to be eliminated, do I not try and draw some fouls and get to the line at least? That is when MIA needed him the most, when Wade's offense couldn't carry them, and he passively stood around avoiding the ball until the last 2 minutes when the pressure was off, then he hit a 3.

Wade deserves no bashing for this series at all, besides maybe 2 things: #1 The ill-advised "coughing incident", and #2 Not getting in LeBron's ear and telling him to get his head out of his butt, for his team-mates' sake.

I've never understood the hype about this guy, and this series only strengthened my views about him. I am a LONG-TIME Miami fan, and was not happy when we got him. Sure he got us to the Finals, and will probably win Championships for us (I hope), but I knew I would have to watch performances like these from him too. I was just hoping that it wouldn't be in the NBA Finals when he pulled them out. Give me another Wade over LeBron anyday.

Thanks guys =D talent wise, he deserved those MVP awards, he can win more, and I think on a team that utilises him properly he can be a finals MVP and multiple championship winner. He's also a guy you'd drop a max salary on, and I'm heavily against dropping max contracts on all but the best players. But (currently) I think everyone expects him to the the main man, to lead the team to victory. I don't think that's the player he is (yet), he wasn't in Cleveland and he isn't in Miami.

Call me Nutsy if you like, but if I was Riley, I would trade Lebron for Dwight Howard and build around a core of Wade, Howard and Bosh.
I know this probably will not happen, but the winner that Riley is, you would think he would be disgusted with a "star" player giving up on his team like that.

Orlando won't get a better offer than that, and Howard will possibly bolt anyway.

DB5, my thoughts exactly.

I think however Lebron would be worth trading for Howard AND another player such as Jameer Nelson.

Easy speedy, I wasn't bashing wade, just trying to point out that it wasn't just lebron who came up short. His team mates have to take some responsibility too! I like wade more than lebron too, but my belief is that it was a heat strategy to make wade the #1 go to guy. In game 6 wade just didn't play a good 4th qtr and by the time lebron decided wade wasn't going to get it done it was too late. It's not wade bashing tho. Great players screw up too ya know! I've seen pierce, Allen and KG all blow big games for the celtics at diff times. Look at game 7 last year. KG dominated gasol in the 3rd qtr but ran out of gas in the 4th and the lakers bigs stole the title.

It's cool Beantown, just felt like venting about LeBron anyway. been holding it in since game 6, had to let it out ;)

It's really difficult to be a long time fan of a team, then have to support a player I don't like.

Yeah, I can understand that Speedy. I wouldn't want Lebron on the Celtics either. I just don't like his style of play or the way he comes across in the media. I do try to be fair to the guy too though and I do think he is copping more than his fair share of the blame for Miami's loss.

OK, fair enough, he is copping more than his fair share of the blame, but he also bought it upon himself for many reasons, and he is gonna have to have thickskin to get through all this. Although in some ways, I think his ego might get in the way of it affecting him.

To be fair to him, I thought that he had really won me over in the Celtics and Bulls series', I really thought I was wrong about him all these years, but then Games 2 thru 6 had me back to believing what I had always thought about him.

The kid has too much talent to not win in the future though, and he'll probably prove me and many others wrong, but right now, the guy infuriates me.