LeBron James might be the most obnoxious athlete on the planet right now.
He openly talks about his self-importance and goes on senseless political rants.
Conservative Host Laura Ingraham got tired of LeBron’s drivel, and called him out with one simple sentence.
LeBron sparked tensions when he said Donald Trump “doesn’t give a f— about anybody.”
Ingraham responded and told him to “shut up and dribble.”
From The Washington Examiner:
NBA star Lebron James explained why he “will definitely not shut up and dribble” as Fox News host Laura Ingraham suggested he do.
Speaking to reporters Saturday afternoon at the NBA All-Star 2018 Media Day in Los Angeles, James said he is too much of an inspiration to kids and society to stand down.
“We will definitely not shut up and dribble. I will definitely not do that. I mean too much to society, I mean too much to the youth, I mean too much to so many kids that feel like they don’t have a way out and they need someone to help lead them out of the situation they’re in,” the Cleveland Cavaliers player said. He said the conditions in which he grew up, including being an African American kid in a single-parent household, “defeated the odds.”
The feud between James and Ingraham began last week when the Fox News host said James and fellow NBA star Kevin Durant should “shut up and dribble” in response to criticisms they made against President Trump.
If LeBron’s comment that “he means too much to society” wasn’t off-putting enough, the predictable accusation of racism was.
More from the Examiner:
Amid intense backlash to her comments, including from James’ former teammate Dwyane Wade, Ingraham put out a statement saying that charges of “racism” against her are “false” and “defamatory.”
“In 2003, I wrote a New York Times bestseller called ‘Shut Up & Sing,’ in which I criticized celebrities like the Dixie Chicks & Barbra Streisand who were trashing then-President George W. Bush. I have used a variation of that title for more than 15 years to respond to performers who sound off on politics,” Ingraham said. “I’ve told Robert DeNiro to ‘Shut Up & Act,’ Jimmy Kimmel to ‘Shut Up & Make Us Laugh,’ and just this week told the San Antonio Spurs’ Gregg Popovich to ‘Shut up & Coach.'”
She added: “If pro athletes and entertainers want to freelance as political pundits, then they should not be surprised when they’re called out for insulting politicians. There was no racial intent in my remarks – false, defamatory charges of racism are a transparent attempt to immunize entertainment and sports elites from scrutiny and criticism.”
Ingraham invited LeBron on her show, but it seems unlikely he will accept the invitation because most people on the left feel more in control by ranting and raving as opposed to opening up a dialogue.
One journalist is hoping the interaction will take place so the two can find common ground.
From The Washington Post:
James and Ingraham are capable of a more interesting conversation than they are showing, and you wish they would have it: Ingraham has invited him on her show, and it wouldn’t be beneath him to accept.
It would be a heck of a prize fight, and they might even discover that they have a little more in common than they suspected. Ingraham is not some wilting vanilla creature of privilege, though she was educated at Dartmouth.
Her mother was a waitress, and her grandparents were Polish immigrants. She’s a single working mother with three small children — a daughter she adopted from Guatemala and two sons from Russia. Whatever you think of her views, she knows what it is to be an outsider, and she’s got guts: she had to have them to break through the all-male shock jock culture of radio, and build an audience in the many millions, an audience James seems ignorant or dismissive of.
LeBron may tout his social impact, but his political impact was absolutely zero.
In fact, the more he campaigned for Hillary, the more Ohioans he drove into Trump’s camp.
The RealClearPolitics poll had Trump up an average of 2.2 points, but he won by over 8 points in the final tally.
LeBron would be wise to take Ingraham’s advice and just shut up and dribble.