Adrian Wojnarowski [Redacted]

I had the unfortunate experience of coming across this article on Yahoo's Sports Page this afternoon --Lebron's Childish Act: When a simple show of sportsmanship was called for, LeBron James behaved like an "immature brat.". In it, author Adrian Wojnarowski, who I've never had an opinion of one way or another, joins the swelling ranks of middling sportswriters to come out against LeBron for his refusal to shake hands with the Magic after the last game of the Eastern Conference Finals.

This shit pisses me off to no end, for a lot of reasons, most of them having to do with the fact that Wojnarowski, and his ilk, have completely unrealistic and unfair expectations of sports stars, and that those expectations are very often contradictory. In this case, they expect Lebron to be a remorseless competitor on the one hand (it's no coincidence of diction that we praise our athletes for being "soldiers", or "warriors", or applaud them for their "killer instinct"), and then immediately transform into this gracious and genteel gentleman the very second the horn sounds.

Yes, shaking hands after a sporting event is the right thing to do, and it's probably something one should make great pains to carry-out regardless of how pissed-off he or she may be, but on occasion, even for the most conscious of athletes, the heat of the moment supplants that little part of the human brain that can distinguish war from simulated-war. In this case, Lebron's emotions got the better of him. Not something he should be proud of, but hardly something to get your panties all up in a bunch about. (It's not like this hasn't happened before, and for way sketchier reasons.)

So that pisses me off. But what really angers me [redacted] is the sanctimonious, Mount Pious, bullshit moralizing that accompanies his totally out of place and exaggerated sense of outrage. Here are a few choice quotes that caught my eye:

As it turns out, there’s one thing allowed to happen at the end of a playoff series: Everyone bows down and kisses the King’s ring.

Alright, sure. Completely change your argument. I thought we were supposed to stand in judgement over Lebron's lack of sportsmanship. But this implies an entirely different criticism. Now we're meant to think that Lebron's walk-out signifies arrogance, vainglory, egomania? If we're gonna make bullshit claims, let's at least be consistent.

Here’s the question: Who has the guts to tell him that he sounds like an immature, self-absorbed brat?

[redacted]

Within the Cavs, someone needed to tell James that he embarrassed himself and the franchise, but that won’t happen.

He embarrassed himself? (Maybe, barely.) But the franchise, too!?! Really? Let's put this into perspective. Again, I don't mean to bring up the whole NFL DUI pandemic, but if we're gonna start taking professional-sports entities to task for embarrassing or otherwise regrettable behavior, I think we can do a little better than writing, I am not exaggerating, according to Google News, 866 articles about Lebron James' refusal to shake hands after losing a horribly disappointing playoff series. Give me a fucking break. If this constitutes regrettable behavior then how the hell are we supposed to root for any of these guys? I mean, just, fuck. Fuck is all I mean.

[Wojnarowski now switching gears again to decry the Cavs' pregame ritual] Someone should’ve told James that the pregame Polaroid act was belittling and beneath a championship contender, but it never happened.

Too bad Wojnarowski didn't write this article before the Magic series, because then Lebron and his teammates would've known that their pregame ritual was "beneath" them and they probably would've won. You see, Wojnarowski is just pointing out what sportswriters have always known, which is that athletes are not supposed to have too much fun, because that's considered juvenile and clownish, until they get too somber, like Kobe, at which point they're supposed to have fun again and remember that basketball is just a game. (Let's not also forget that the "Polaroid act" was featured on SportCenter 1,000 times a week, and everyone seemed to get a big kick out of it at the time, probably including Wojnarowski.)

All season, the Cavaliers acted too entitled, too arrogant for a team that’s won nothing.

Unfucking believable. Of course, Wojnarowski never once aired this criticism during the entire length of the season. Never once doubted that James' Cavs would be in the Finals. Never once even hinted that "arrogance", of all things, might be the Cavs downfall. No. Most definitely not. In fact, what strikes me as the most ironic/hypocritical part of this whole thing is that not even a week before writing this article in which Wojnarowski blasts LeBron for his apparently undeserved sense of entitlement -- or whatever the fuck he's complaining about -- Wojnarowski wrote this after Lebron's miracle shot to win game 3 of the Magic series:

“We are playing with history in the making,” Wally Szczerbiak(notes) said. “He’s going to be the best basketball player to ever touch a ball.”

Nearby, Mo Williams still wore his uniform, still a face flushed in delirium.

“What just happened out there?” he asked.

Outside his locker, his knees on ice, LeBron James looked up and offered a knowing nod and smile.

“Just say thank you to the basketball gods,” he said.

The basketball god, LeBron James means.

Once more, he wears No. 23.

Wojnarowski giveth, Wojnarowski taketh away. I guess.

------------
[redacted]