LeBron James practiced a golf swing during the national anthem Tuesday night, and Donald Trump called it a “TOTAL DISGRACE” like he’d caught him mid-crime.
Trump put it in writing on Truth Social, accusing LeBron of disrespecting the country and insisting he “should apologize to all of those Great American Warriors and Heroes who died for the American Flag,” as Mediaite reported. LeBron’s golf swing during the anthem isn’t new. What’s new is the stage.
He’s been working on his short game seriously as his career winds down, telling Spectrum SportsNet LIVE back in September that he’s got “the bug,” per the Daily Wire. The windup-into-jumper motion that got Trump’s attention Tuesday is the same one ESPN’s cameras caught during a Christmas Day game against the Rockets last season, back when he was still a Laker. Nobody wrote a Truth Social post about it then. I’ve hated the Lakers since before I could vote, and even I can tell you this golf swing has never once been the actual story before now.
Tuesday was different because of where it happened, not what LeBron did with his hands. He made his official Philadelphia 76ers debut at Madison Square Garden on the night the Knicks raised their championship banner and handed out rings, per the Inquirer — the single most-watched game of opening week. Philadelphia won 106-100 and spoiled the ceremony.
Tyrese Maxey scored 28, and LeBron finished with 14 points, nine rebounds and seven assists in the 24th season opener of his career, per NBC Sports. LeBron’s first Philly highlight came off a Maxey alley-oop, not a golf stance.
Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns gave the New York Knicks a loss to go with their rings. That’s the real headline out of opening week in New York, and nobody on Truth Social mentioned it.
Clay Travis didn’t wait for Trump to say anything:
https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/2113251858634756143
LeBron didn’t do anything Tuesday he hasn’t done for roughly a year. He did it on the loudest night the NBA offers in October, in the building that just finished honoring somebody else’s parade. Trump found a target big enough to make the clip travel, and Travis helped load it before Trump even showed up.
Everyone calling this disgraceful and everyone mocking them for caring are running the same play.
Both sides need the clip to move, and a 41-year-old practicing his short game during the anthem — on a new team, in enemy territory, on the league’s biggest night of the week — is exactly specific enough to make it move. That’s the business model, not a coincidence.
LeBron is in his 24th season of a career built on being the biggest thing on television whether anyone’s offended or not, and a debut this loud was never going to pass quietly. He didn’t need to change anything about the routine to get this reaction. He just needed to be LeBron, in a new jersey, on the one night New York had circled for someone else entirely.
Trump needed a villain. LeBron, at 41, is still the easiest one to cast.
