ESPN analyst Max Kellerman said emphatically that NBA superstar LeBron James is starting to decline.
“Are we seeing the decline of LeBron James?” Kellerman was asked on ESPN’s “First Take.”
“Yes, we are,” Kellerman responded, arguing that James himself is the “source” for his commentary. “Am I the only person who notices this — is talking about this? A couple days ago, LeBron said that I doubt that I’ll be 100% — I knew there was gonna be a chance I wasn’t gonna be 100% this season, in fact, I don’t think I’ll ever be 100% again in my career.”
“100% means 100% of what you have been,” Kellerman stressed.
“It’s clear he’s still the best player in the world — are we still sure about that?” the analyst questioned.
In recent years, the 36-year-old basketball star has positioned himself as a left-wing political thought leader, doubling down on his anti-police activism, in particular.
Last month, for example, the basketball star was on the receiving end of criticism when he seemingly doxxed and threatened a police officer who saved the life a young black girl. The Daily Wire reported:
James posted, then deleted, a tweet targeting an Ohio police officer last week after the officer fatally shot a black 16-year-old girl, Ma’Khia Bryant. The officer shot the teen as she lunged at another girl with a knife. … James had posted a photo of the officer with the caption “YOU’RE NEXT” and an emoji of an hourglass. The pro athlete added, “#ACCOUNTABILITY.” The tweet was posted after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd during an arrest last year.
Law enforcement experts have since said the officer’s force was “legally justified,” as highlighted by The Daily Wire:
“My first impression is that the officer was legally justified in using deadly force,” Bowling Green State University criminal justice professor Philip Stinson said of the officer’s actions.
“It’s a terribly tragic situation, and my heart goes out to the girl and her family and friends,” he said. “But from looking at the video, it appears to me that a reasonable police officer would have had a reasonable apprehension of an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death being imposed against an officer or someone else. That’s the legal standard.”
Though James deleted the controversial tweet, he never issued an apology to the officer.
“I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police,” James posted in a follow-up tweet. “I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer[,] it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY.”
WATCH:
.@maxkellerman believes we are seeing the decline of LeBron James.
"He's still the best player in the world? Are we still sure about that?" pic.twitter.com/gE8BN428q8
— First Take (@FirstTake) May 5, 2021
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