Coming off one of the worst PR months of his entire career, LeBron James was once again on the receiving end of non-basketball related trolling that Twitter took more delight reveling in.
After LeBron was blasted and mocked for his spectacularly tone-deaf and self-serving comments towards the NBA’s scandalous theatrics with Daryl Morey and China last week, fans around the sport were curious to see how LeBron would navigate through anymore drama surrounding the geopolitical nightmare.
Well, it only took one game for basketball fans to re-load their Twitter replies for another LeBron raid.
During Monday night’s singing of the National Anthem, LeBron stepped out of a line of Lakers player saluting the anthem before the song was over and began yelling ‘LET’S GO!’ to the fans in Staples Center while the performer was still finishing the last few lyrics.
Fans were quick to brand the actions as 'disrespectful', and half-joked that LeBron wouldn't have done that if it was the signing of the Chinese national anthem.
Ever since Colin Kaepernick first knelt during the National Anthem on September 1st, 2016, National Anthem ‘etiquette’ has been a bit of a talking point with fans seemingly curious to see what other professional athletes would do during a song that has been tied to increasingly polarizing narratives.
If the events in China had never occurred this likely would have gone unnoticed, but fans on Twitter quickly mocked LBJ for the timing of yelling during the U.S. national anthem, coupled with having just publicly condemned Daryl Morey’s free speech while appearing to echo the same pro-censor stance as an intolerant Chinese government.
Check out the most notable tweets below.