LeBron James' hour-long television program that culminated in him announcing he was taking his talents to South Beach and the Miami Heat as a free agent was off-putting to a lot of people, to put it mildly. It was also almost 11 months ago. Nevertheless, Jeff Van Gundy, never one to decline the opportunity to beat a dead horse, couldn't stop ranting about how he didn't understand why people were so mad at James for the whole spectacle.
Jeff Van Gundy Hijacks 2011 NBA Finals Broadcast To Defend LeBron James’ ‘Decision’
The ESPN/ABC broadcaster has many good qualities, but commenting on storylines larger than the game itself is not one of them. And so, a brief mention of “The Decision” for context for viewers who hadn’t watched the 2011 NBA Playoffs turned into a several-minute monologue that stretched several possessions and made basketball fans long for someone to talk about the actual game.
Shannon Owens of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel transcribed Van Gundy’s words. He began with this.
"He's never gotten into any type of scandal, all he decided to do was to go to a different place to work," Van Gundy said. "And it just shows you that we celebrate athletes who go through addictions, go through problems with the law. This isn't what LeBron James has had problems with. He made a questionable decision, at best, to have the decision and then I think the Miami Heat organization did themselves a disservice by having that over-the-top celebration."
And then, he finished with this:
"And just going back to James' decision, the other part is, wouldn't every working American want to chose where they want to work and who they work with if they could," Van Gundy questioned. "And so we resent the thing that we would want in our own profession."
A couple thoughts:
- Nobody said sports fandom is entirely rational. Rationally, yes, it is weird that we bash James and celebrate players who get in trouble with the law. But I contest that a) it’s not as widespread as Van Gundy thinks, and b) when it happens, it happens because these people really don’t mean all that much outside of a sports context. If a player gets in trouble with the law, we can always appreciate their athleticism while telling our kids to follow different role models. If a player does something that offends the sensibilities of the sport itself -- well, that’s harder to run from.
- Van Gundy is sugarcoating big time if he thinks “The Decision” was “questionable at best” and the over-the-top celebration did them a “disservice.”
- The last part is the one that gets me. OF COURSE working-class people would love to change jobs, but working-class people don’t make $15 million a year in base salary. To wonder aloud why those people “resent” what they are afforded in their own profession is to assume these people have any idea how to relate to someone who makes 300 times as much as they do.
Van Gundy isn’t wrong rationally, but he did demonstrate he’s pretty out of touch with how sports fans think with that rant. Oh, and it happened during the middle of an NBA Finals game when actual basketball was being played. Let’s not forget that part.
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