Comments on: Layups: LeBron’s Autobiography

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:38:39 +0000

LeBron displayed an unfortunate (though very real) part of himself when he left the court without offering congratulations to the Magic. Small wonder that he would prefer to offer a more manufactured image. I don't say this to vilify LeBron, because I try not to judge people by one or two bad incidents. He's human and as entitled to slip up as much as any of us. But many people in LeBron's target demographic didn't like it at all, and LBJ is a businessman. He knows not to piss off potential customers too often.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:57:17 +0000

Oh, I completely agree. It's not really even about getting completely candid responses, but more about getting some piece of the actual person behind the facade -- like you say, at least with MJ we were getting some part of him, however filtered down. With Kobe and even LBJ, we're not getting them at all, we're just getting Jordan re-hashed, MJ 2.0. And it's transparent. We know that's what we're getting. In the past, at least they weren't telegraphing to the fans that the public persona you saw wasn't real. Nowadays, it's openly accepted as a fact of NBA life. And the rare players who buck that trend -- Artest, etc. -- are labeled "crazy" when they give us a glimpse of what's really going on in their lives.

By: Jason J

Jason J — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:45:13 +0000

Neil - I think what you're seeing is that the carefully constructed Jordan image was built out of the pleasant Wilmington, NC meets Madison Avenue bits and pieces the real Michael Jordan, and the carefully constructed LeBron et al images are also built out of the Wilmington, NC meets Madison Avenue bits and pieces the real Michael Jordan. I wouldn't necessarily say MJ was any more genuine (at least not by the time he was bald), just that his false mask more closely resembled him than these others' do, since the others' are made to resemble his. But that doesn't mean you were any more likely to get a truly candid response from Michael than you are from this generation.