James has been outspoken against the current administration, going as far as calling Trump a bumNBAE/GETTY IMAGES
President Trump last year "took aim" at the top two sports leagues in the U.S., and while the NFL "hasn't recovered," the NBA "hasn't looked back," according to a front-page piece by John Branch of the N.Y. TIMES. The NFL has been "unable to extract itself from the sticky web of the anthem controversy," while the NBA has "avoided any such entanglement." Its star players and coaches have "confidently dived into the political debates without retribution and with the support of the league commissioner and many team owners, if not all of them." Trump's remarks about player protests "sent NFL owners into a collective panic that persists." Trump’s comments about the Warriors when they declined a White House visit was "met head on by basketball’s biggest star, LeBron James, who called him a bum." Former NFL PR exec Joe Lockhart said, "I don’t think he got what he wanted out of them because it didn’t generate very much controversy or passion among his base. He was not able to generate debate within the NBA community." Lockhart added, "There’s a fundamental difference between the two leagues. The superstar players in the NBA are also the leaders in the union, and they have enormous influence and are a very cohesive group. ... I’m not saying what’s better, it’s just different." Branch noted in both leagues, "more than two-thirds of players are black," but the difference is in the "balance of star power." In the NBA, most stars "are black," but in the NFL, many marquee players "are white" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/23).
SPEAKING OUT: Baseball HOFer Hank Aaron said of current athletes, "They ought to voice their opinion, regardless of what one may think. We didn’t get to where we are today because we kept our mouth closed or scratched our head and sat and didn’t do anything." He added that athletes in general are "speaking out more today than when he played." Aaron: "To be honest, I feel somewhat guilty that I didn’t do possibly as much as I could have done" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6/23).
