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LeBron James is a great basketball player. He is arguably the best player on the planet and top ten all time in the NBA. He is heading to his third straight NBA Finals appearance and he collected his fourth MVP award this season.

So why do so many people hate him?

His supporters will say he is hated because he is so great. People hate greatness, they argue, because it forces them to look at their own shortcomings and realize they will never be on LeBron’s level. There may be some truth to that, but I don’t think it tells the whole story.

It could be that he makes it look so easy. We all remember the Cleveland days when it seemed like he spent more time coming up with special handshakes for his teammates than actually practicing. It seemed like basketball was an afterthought. He seemed more interested in building LeBron, Inc. than working on his game. It seemed like he had no work ethic. He was missing that killer instinct that Michael Jordan had and that Kobe Bryant has to this day. In many people’s eyes he was a spoiled brat that had everything handed to him and didn’t appreciate it. He was the Paris Hilton of basketball.

LeBron seemed more interested in hanging out with rappers than hanging out in the gym. He had no respect for the game and that drove the purists crazy.

The whole state of Ohio hates him because they feel that he betrayed them when he left to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. That hate will probably never go away. LBJ could buy everyone in Cleveland a new car and they would still hate him.

And then there was The Decision, the colossally disastrous one hour special where James announced his intention to head to South Beach. This, in my opinion, was the turning point. This was such a low point in television history, that they should study it in media classes at every university as an example of what not to do.

There, in those 60 minutes, laid the destruction of LeBron James’ popularity. The media, and ESPN in particular, are responsible for the hate that is hurled his way on a daily basis. ESPN had a love affair with LeBron that is rivaled only by their recent canonizing of Tim Tebow. They, and other outlets, hailed him as King James and forced him down the throats of the sports-going public.

They shamelessly apologized and defended him at every opportunity. That is when the backlash happened. People became so tired of the seemingly one-sided reporting of James that they revolted.

The only other player who has dealt with a similar amount of hatred is Kobe Bryant. It is no mistake that Kobe and LeBron are continually compared to Michael Jordan. And that gets under a lot of people’s skin. Jordan is possibly the best player to lace up a pair of sneakers in the history of the world. He has reached mythical proportion in some people’s minds.

In hindsight, it seems like Jordan was universally loved, like he never did anything wrong. Jordan played in a different era both in playing style and media coverage. When Jordan was winning his six championships, there was no Facebook or Twitter. There weren’t 17 million sports blogs. He did not have to deal with 24/7 scrutiny. There weren’t hundreds of reporters and thousands of bloggers trying to find something negative to write about him. LeBron came into the league in 2003, right before social media became a daily part of our lives.

Has he made mistakes? Sure, anybody in the public eye has made bad decisions at one point or another. But consider this, LeBron James has never been involved in a domestic abuse case, has never been involved in any incident that lead to another person being shot or killed, never been involved in drugs. There are a number of pro athletes who are roundly loved who have been involved in all the above mentioned crimes. But there is hatred for LeBron?

Hate him or love him, that’s fine, but you should also enjoy watching him play the game, because a player like him does not come around very often.

-Israel Soliz