The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Le Batard & Friends Presents: Shut Up & Dribble (feat. Jemele Hill & Cari Champion)

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

LeBron James didn't just become the most famous athlete on Earth — he became one of its most careful, and occasionally most explosive, political voices. In the most contentious episode of our LeBron series, Dan, Amin and Izzy trace the moments that turned a basketball player into a lightning rod: The Trayvon Martin hoodie photo — and Dan's own take on it at the time, warts and all. The killing of Tamir Rice, and the "I Can't Breathe" shirt that, in the moment, didn't include his name. The ESPYs speech. The White House years, plural. The Bubble. And the legacy that's still being argued over, for better or worse. With firsthand memories from Jemele Hill and Cari Champion, plus a LeBron teammate history conveniently forgot. Homework for this episode: • "Reaction to tragic killing shows growth of LeBron" (The Miami Herald, 2012) • "Kevin Durant x LeBron James x Cari Champion" (Uninterrupted, 2018) • "Trump Attacked Black Athletes — and Paid for It in the End" (The Atlantic, 2020) • "LeBron James Doesn’t Talk About Politics Anymore" (New York, 2022) Encouraged homework for next week's season finale: • "There's Always This Year" by Hanif Abdurraqib (2025) More from "The Step Back": • Episode 1: The Chosen One (feat. Sonny Vaccaro) • Episode 2: The Decision (feat. Jim Gray) • Episode 3: I'm Coming Home (feat. Iman Shumpert) • Episode 4: LeBron Inc. (feat. Pablo Torre) • Don't miss an episode — subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm tired of this man being celebrated. For what? This is the stepback. Banks drive steps back. Puts up a three. And LeBron James from downtown. The Cleveland Cavaliers select LeBron James. LeBron, what's your decision?

I made a difficult decision, but I understood what my future was about. I believe one president is trying to divide us. My first response was, you bum. Welcome to episode five. Shut up and dribble. Well, the climbing is hot. The number one job in America, the point of person, is someone who doesn't understand the people and really don't give a fuck about the people.

Let's use this moment as a call to action for all professional athletes to educate ourselves. Explore these issues. Speak up. Use our influence and renounce all violence. I mean, we've been doing some dramatic readings with you this time. I kind of want to do like a slam poetry reading. If you could, it's of the third most retweeted tweet of all time. Really?

Yes, and it comes from one at King James, September 23rd, 2017 at 11, 18 a.m. All right. Wow, that's $5. No, it's for dramatic effect. I'm about to do dramatic. You clear your throat before you do dramatic. We also haven't established fines on this show yet, so give it a break. So, as I was.

You Bums. Steph Curry. You might stop right there. That would have been the greatest tweet of all time if it was just you bum, Steph Curry, and setting up the ultimate rivalry. But it has nothing to do with that, really. Pardon. You bum, Steph Curry already said he ain't going.

So therefore, ain't no invite. Going to the White House was a great honor until you showed up, end quote. Again, I mentioned that was the third most retweeted tweet of all time, but was that not the most give me a hug LeBron has ever done from the public I know you're all going to love me for this

check this out I'm going to throw Steph's name in there I'm going to call the president a bum I'm a champion right now give me a big hug don't a cup in his ear a little bit of that to the crowd a little playing to the crowd

no I mean I thought when he did that it was the most overt claim against the president I'd seen from a pro athlete Well, you know, people campaigning and all that stuff, that's fine. But this is straight up, he called the president a bum, man. That was groundbreaking material right there. It did feel like he was calling Steph Curry a bum.

Yeah. And then it was interesting to see him retreat into the shadows subsequently after that when the comments came with Brittany Griner or China where he clearly was out of his depth on anything beyond race talk. This fight was a fight that LeBron James wasn't quite equipped for. I'm not even sure it's fair to ask him to try to fight it, but he wasn't here for it much long after that. Safe to say his public persona in terms of politics and things of this nature, pretty uneven.

Yeah, I mean, a guy who's had contradicting stances that sometimes come in conflict with one another. And so how do you navigate it? And for most people, it's not a question that you need to really argue by. Like, you can have these competing ideals in your private life or even amongst your friend group or whatever. But when you are the most popular athlete in this country, then it poses different things. So, for example, how he could be very outspoken about police brutality towards people in this country and then be very silent about what's happening in China featuring a lot of police brutality. For most people, it's like, yeah, I can navigate that because nobody cares.

But when it's LeBron, everybody cares. But he's allowed to be a voice for just black people. if that's what he decided to grow into. Well, let's see what he decided to grow into because, obviously, and I know you got excited there, we're not sticking to sports today. Further exciting, you're going to have Jamel Hill on a little bit later to talk about whatever it is you would like to talk with her about.

But let's go back to May 2007. The NBA itself doesn't even have a Facebook page yet, let alone LeBron James. He's 22 years old. The Cavs are in the midst of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Vince Carter's Nets. The Olympics are coming up. LeBron is dedicated to the Olympic team.

It's going to be in China in 2008. There's a conflict in Darfur in Sudan. It's led to that point to the death of 500,000 civilians and the displacement of 2.5 million more. China for the uninformed supplied Sudan's government with money and weapons. China imported Sudan's oil. Now, Amin, you grew up in Sudan. You've talked to Ira Neubel. He was a teammate of LeBron James's, and Ira had a very specific issue,

with the Olympics being in China. I was reading the newspaper one day. USA Today at the back of it was a blurb. And I was ironically on the way to shoot around in Charlotte. Just reading the back of it. And it was a small blurb in the USA Today about what's going on in the dark firm. So at this time I'm working for the Phoenix Suns.

And obviously I know what's happening in my country. It's been happening for a while. But it's starting to get just a little bit of news coverage, but not a whole lot. And so I remember when I Renewable did this. What did he do? So what we did is I constructed a letter imposing on China to do something about the situation. And I passed it out to all of my teammates as well as some other teams in the NBA and tried to get them to sign the petition.

And, you know, most of my teammates did sign that petition, as you recall. With the exception to one, and we all know it was LeBron. LeBron said I don't know enough about the situation to put my name on it. Yeah, it was basically more so just he needed to educate himself more on the situation and become more aware of it and he just was uncomfortable at the time signing the petition. I mean, I completely understood that, you know, look, he was 22 years old, just in the league, starting to solidify himself and his career. I'm going to read a quote from this open letter saying that, quote, China cannot be a legitimate host while it remains complicit in the terrible suffering and destruction.

Asking him to sign a petition to bring awareness to it was not the same as asking him to boycott the Olympics, right? And he didn't. That was the whole thing that IRIS said. We're not asking for a boycott. I was really just calling about trying to raise awareness just to get some help over there and kind of do something about the situation. From Ira's perspective, he just thought it was a situation where because of the Olympics coming up, there was a great opportunity to bring a spotlight to it. But at the same time, he says now that, yeah, the guy was 22 years old and really hadn't dipped the toe in these kind of waters. Almost any kind of situation like this, probably would have been daunting, to say the least. And like I said, I believe more of that is him being young.

And at that time, he didn't necessarily have control of his career. He had control of his career on the court, but off the court, he didn't necessarily have control of his career. He had, you know, agents and management and all these other people probably instructing him and telling him what to do and guiding him. At this point, Dan, at this age, with this level of discussion point, right, basically genocide in Sudan, are we expecting LeBron James to be informed on this, to have something to say, to be sharp on this at 22 years old? Or are we giving him some grace and saying when he says, I need to educate myself. We give him a break at this point. At 22, totally unfair to ask him to go down the path of being adult enough to answer for things like that.

When he spent the last six years of his life, hyper-obsessed on how do I get to the league, you've got to give him some time to find his voice. I didn't think that he found it in any way until he joined up with Dwayne Wade, and they went a couple of years into being into Miami before he was like, okay, I'll tackle some of these once in a while. We'll get to that in a second. and I just want to get Amin's thoughts on whether you thought LeBron in this position, whether it was unfair like Dan says,

or whether you thought maybe he could even come back with a little bit more information or a little bit more opinion when he did actually educate himself. I think Dan brings up a great point. But when you're at that age for him, and Ira spoke of this as well, you're still trying to figure out who I am as a basketball player. I'm still trying to establish myself in this league.

And I know it might sound weird to people. Like, wait, he's a number one overall pick. He's been in the finals. You're still kind of not quote. white discovered your identity yet. I think that's part of it. The other part of it is this was a very obscure humanitarian crisis for the mainstream American public. There are many coaches, many GMs, executives, hell, many American citizens who are educated and have access to resources and are affluent who did not know about this, who could not point to Sudan on a map. So obviously as a Sudanese person,

I wish something more could have been done. But I also understand. at that time just the fact that Iranubal or Don Cheadle or Tracy McGreg that these people were taking these steps, including traveling to Sudan to go to refugee camps and see what was happening. That in and of itself was a pretty big leap. It was just the way I was raised and my father growing up in the South was part of civil rights movement and me coming from Detroit and just raised, just wanting to help and do something. Iron Newell was not his teammate. This probably wouldn't have ended up on his door set.

So, yeah, so that's a big thing. What made it noteworthy was Iron Noble and every other Cavs teammate signed the petition other than LeBron. Yeah, but he's got a different set of rules, a different value to being attached to any cause. I actually think I make the argument,

even though, of course, you want a human rights activist to advocate for the proper human rights. Sitting that out, though, if you don't feel like you have enough information, that seems the most prudent thing for a 22-year-old in his economy class to do. Not just a 22-year-old, almost everybody. Because it's something that they truly don't understand.

It's not like this is dominating the new cycle, and how can you not have an opinion? Okay. That year, I was later traded or I ended up signing with the Lakers in the playoffs, and Kobe Bryant actually did a PSA for the cause that helped raise money when I was out there. I was able to convince him. He did a P.M. and Derek Fisher did a PSA for it. Let's go five years forward. He's 27 years old.

He's a member of the Miami Heat. You mentioned it that he sort of found his voice alongside Dwayd Wade. Well, at this point, he's got 4 million Twitter followers. It's been a month since the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, who was a heat fan. He was 17 years old. He'd gone out to buy some Skittles in a hoodie during warmups, actually, for the NBA All-Star game. And he was killed. Heraldo Rivera goes on Fox News and says, quote,

I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was, just the most idiotic thing to say in making the symbol of racism the topic instead of the actual racism. So the heat, they get together in a hotel ballroom, and they take this photo. It's basically all of them with their heads bowed wearing hoodies. And hashtag, we are Trayvon Martin, hashtag hoodies, hashtag stereotype, hashtag we want justice. Dan, you wrote a column on this after they put this out. the next day, what did it basically say? That this is a literal stand that this team is making as the most famous powerful sports thing that there is in America. They are using the attention that they have

for a statement that is being made without a word. They have made a bit of a work of art and I'm guessing LeBron James is now growing into I'm done being Dwayne Wade's little brother around here and And for several years, I will remind you, is he, that he didn't have any Twitter followers when he started with the Miami. It was a thing when he joined Twitter and realized, oh, I can have my own power over here as well. And this is how he chose to use it. I'm not going to say early on, but long enough into whatever the pressures of America had been the previous 10 years of his life for him to know the statement he was making here without a word.

I mean, we talk about this in the context of LeBron James, of course, but how did you you see this and feel this when it came out, this very much felt like to me a team thing, a sort of unity thing, a Florida thing as much as anything, and LeBron was just a part of it. A black thing. The black thing, yeah. And that's what I felt like.

I felt like this was something that because it was local enough that the team came to that conclusion. To this day, I don't know if LeBron spearheaded it or was just one guy who said, you know, this kind of basically the flip side of the reneuble situation, which is five years later about a topic that he's a lot more well versed on at a time in his life where

he feels more established and he's grown into more of a mature adult and knowing as a father it's a cause that resonates a lot more, right? Maybe this is a time where he says, yeah, I'll sign on it. This, let's do it, guys. Versus him spearheading it,

I don't know the answer to that, but it's certainly more understandable if it is him just going along with the group. It's more understandable why, given his advanced situation from five years earlier, and also, this is a topic that he does know about, that he is comfortable and educated. I gotta say that bothered me a little bit. Like the idea, like you don't understand the value of human life until after you have children.

Like that to me is kind of silly. I'm probably never going to have kids and that hit home with me as well, you know? But it's not, I mean, it just, it's human nature, Izzy, that when it's something that is similar to you, it'll hit a lot easier. a lot easier and harder. I'm not saying that the value of human life means zero and less, but when it's like, oh, wait, that's just like me. That makes a big difference, I think, to people in general. And then in this case, like I said, specifically in terms of understanding the forces at work here, right? Understanding a judicial system that does not provide justice for people of color, understanding the rampant stereotyping of black people, particularly young

black men, in this case, not even a young black man, a young black boy, right? These are things that LeBron has known about his entire life versus a foreign country is fueling and arming and a conflict in another foreign country, neither of which I've ever seen or could point to on a map. It's a little distant, particularly for someone of that age, 22 years old. The other thing about this specifically is, again, for younger listeners who either weren't of age weren't even alive when this happened. There was like a huge counter argument to Trayvon Martin's murder

that, well, he shouldn't have been wearing a hood. Like that somehow the act of wearing a hooded garment was in and of itself a threatening act. And that's something that you shouldn't be doing. And so it was ridiculous. I mean, not ridiculous if you're predisposed to find black people threatening.

Like George Zimmerman got away with it in Florida. Got away with that crime because there is something in our legal system predisposed to allow white people to find black people more threatening, even if it's just a garment that's making them. But tying into that also was the legions of people who are saying things like, yeah, you shouldn't wear a hoodie. It's almost like respectability politics, right?

Like, oh, pull your pants up and stop wearing a hoodie. And all of these things are the red herrings, really, right? It's designed to distract from what happened, which is an armed man murdered a child walking home with a bag of candy in his pocket. And the hoodie's the excuse. And they all, what did, what do you remember is he about the doing of this? Because I understand exactly how this was the cause that, that reached him as a human, a father, a black man. And then at this point now, you become activists, right? Because he hadn't done anything. He hadn't done this. And I remember thinking to myself that, you know, what we want these athletes to be is these voices for a cause. What has been,

cause. And if the cause is simply racism, great. He and the team took a stance there. If the cause, as we go later on, becomes police brutality and racism, great, let's do more of that. I want that to be the voice that I want to hear for sports because, Dan, you wrote in that column, you talked to Jim Brown, and Jim Brown said the modern day athlete doesn't get behind anything, which means they are wasted a lot of their real power. LeBron is learning that money, fame, popularity, and notoriety pale compared to human feelings and consciousness. And to me, like, I don't know if this is because I've just been watching the Vietnam doc on Netflix, but, you know, the activists, the sports related activists of the 60s and early 70s, like it was an actual cause. There was meaning there.

It was not just anti-government, but pro-human life, et cetera. And it didn't feel like LeBron is finding his lane until maybe right now with the help of the Miami. The other thing about that photo that I find interesting is that it invites heat. Invites it because you feel like you're on the right side of a cause. So when you mentioned Jim Brown, first thing I think of is one of the great sports quotes he ever gave me, which is he said, Muhammad Ali did not go from the most hated athlete in America, 60s, civil rights, all of that stuff, the most beloved athlete in America until he lost his ability to speak. Like, the power of Jim Brown, saying, that of Muhammad Ali is the crucible that LeBron is at here, and he's not even speaking. He's making

the statement without speaking, but in that space, to me, it's super interesting where the power ends up going with the choice. And after that, he learned something, some things that made him sort of back away from what this initially was. Well, let's, let's more localize it, right? Let's move forward two years, because in December of 2014, this is when a white cop in Cleveland had just shot and killed 12-year-old black boy named Tamir Rice for carrying a toy gun five miles from where the calves played basketball. A grand jury just declined to indict the cop in Ferguson, Missouri, who had killed 18-year-old Mike Brown. And a grand jury had also just declined to indict the NYPD cop who killed Eric Gardner in a chokehold, as he said, quote, I can't breathe.

The calves are playing in New York. LeBron says at the garden about this, quote, he says it's a sensitive subject right now. It doesn't matter if you're an athlete or not, if you feel, passionate about it, you have the right to speak up on it. If not, don't worry about it. That part to me felt like he just got caught up in the air, didn't know what to say, and then sort of dismissed it at the end. A couple nights later, the calves are playing in Brooklyn. There's protesters outside. Kyrie wants to wear a shirt. Derek Rose wears the shirt that says, I can't breathe a little earlier. And Kyrie wants to wear the shirt. LeBron says he wants to wear the shirt, and then they come out for warm-ups in this t-shirt that says, I can't breathe. What do you remember me in about that

moment. Yeah, so Eric Garner, as you mentioned, was killed with an illegal chokehold. It's a tactic that was banned by the NYPD. And I think what made the Eric Garner killing super viscerals, we saw the video. We saw the tape of this man being choked to death. And so when they came out with the t-shirts, again, it's one of those things where it's a very easy point A to point B connection point for LeB, because Eric Garner was a larger man, right? And that these cops felt like they had to do all this to subdue him for, by the way, he was, I think, the grand crime of selling loose cigarettes illegally.

Like, it was a nonviolent thing that the guy was up to and for them to use that level of force to even try to subdue him, let alone end up taking his life. It was shocking and sad, and yet all too commonplace. And when you talk about that quote, I remember that quote from LeBron. and what I heard was kind of almost like a distilling of what we're talking about. If this is something you're passionate about, if it touches you, you should be able to come out and talk about it.

If not, we should not be conscripting people to causes that they don't really... That would have been a better quote. But I think it's exactly what you said. He's trying to give the out for people like, look, I don't want people coming to me. You know, why haven't you talked about this thing that's happening in Atlantis that's happening to the Seahorts? I don't know too much about Atlantis, right? He doesn't want to be conscripted into causes that do not really resonate with him. And let's fast forward a year then.

It's December 2015. A grand jury declines to indict the officers in the death of Tamir Rice. LeBron says, quote, I haven't really been up on this issue. So it's hard for me to comment. I'm not much of a social media guy. I don't have enough knowledge about it. So here he is again saying, let me educate myself about it. When it happened five miles from the Cavs Arena, protesters were calling for LeBron to boycott the games.

like hashtag, no justice, no LeBron, and Tamir's mom called his non-response quote, quite sad. Where was he at this point? Because that's a bit of a letdown. It is, but let me stand back from this for a second, just so that the expectations of this aren't unfairly burdensome. I don't know what you expect from your athletes. I don't know what you expect from your human being. So LeBron James was a full-time basketball player and the inconsistencies you are talking about are not making him to me a part-time man of principle. They're making him a human being who occasionally is inconsistent, might not be equipped to tackle every single thing, and probably didn't quite sign up for when he grabbed

a basketball for the first time. I'm going to be the best and most informed thing on every political issue. I just don't know. Tell me it matters to you. Make me feel like it matters to you. When you're in your team with the hoodie down and everything so somber, I feel like it matters to you. When you have a year to discuss what just happened near where you play basketball, where you're probably reading or hearing more about it than anybody else across the country, I would expect at that point for you to have some semblance of a response. You want more and better, and it's fair because that's what advocacy looks like. And it's disappointing when someone who has that power fails to reach your level of expectation and disappoints you there. Like I get, I get why you'd want it, but wouldn't you get why he would say, hey, it's not my responsibility to go full spectrum on where you are. reside on this issue. I think this one is, as I look back at LeBron's career and this part of his

career, this advocacy, this one might be the most confusing one because of everything that Izzy said, because it is a young black boy, because it was in Cleveland, in Northeast Ohio, his neck of the wood, so to speak. And for him to, it seems, it doesn't seem like you need to educate yourself that much. It follows many of the same tropes of all these other police brutality cases where he did speak up. So that one is the one that confuses me versus some of the other things. I wonder, for instance, Muhammad Ali, if he was in a social media era, would we champion him for speaking out against Ain't no Viacong ever call me to be? Or would we say, yeah, but what about like the indigenous people in Australia who get faced crazy racism out there? You

haven't said anything about them, Muhammad Ali, which is kind of the culture that LeBron is growing up in right now or is operating under, if I say I like oranges, it was also what about grapefruits? But this Tamir Rice. If you've already stood up against racism and against police brutality, even if you hadn't dug any deeper into the Tamir Rice case itself, this would be the time where I'm like, okay, give me your soliloquite. Now is when we want to hear what you have to say about this. And instead, he effectively no comments it and never came back around.

Like it's not even like, look, this is awful, da-da-da. But I think we all agree. Cop shooting kids, bad. But what are you guys doing here? with is this that much different than the I Renewable petition where he's saying, I'm not saying it's a good admission form to make, and I'm not saying he's right in either saying it or sitting it out. But if he doesn't know about something,

is he allowed to not know about it and say out loud that he doesn't know about it? Or does his public comment on this have to be responsible instead of disappointing because he needs to lie. I think it has to be responsible because, again, of the proximity of it. How can you be ignorant to this? None of these, like with a year after the Olympics, did anybody go back and ask him about what he educated himself on Sudan? No, right? This Tamir Rice, in 2014, it happened.

In 2015, you had the time to educate yourself. And now we're coming back around to it. And it's just like, hey, what do you got? Nothing. It strains credulity that the first time it arrived to him was when reporters asked him, what about this Tamir Rice thing? That's the part. It's not one of those things that is obscure. That is out of it.

Oh, so you guys have this as faking your way through that answer in order to avoid the subject matter on. entirely. That's not, okay, that's not how I read that. And this was a bad look for him individually, and what is he going to do next? What he has done in the past, he's going to call on his teammates. Guys, we're in 2016 now. A lot of things have changed. LeBron starts the year singing, Welcome to the Terror Dome by Public Enemy in a Samsung ad. He wins a championship, obviously. Top of his game, won it with Cleveland, which I think elevated him a little bit more than Miami. 17 days after he won that championship,

Alton Sterling is shot on camera in Baton Rouge. Less than a day after that, Philando Castile is shot on camera in Minneapolis. Less than a day after that, five white cops killed at a protest in Dallas. Important protests from the Minnesota links in the WMBA at the time. It's a whole other thing.

But then the banana boat crew gets up on stage at the SB's in tuxedos. And if you don't know who the banana boat crew is, it's Carmelo Anthony, it's Crisp. Paul. It's Duane Wade and it's of course LeBron James. Although Carmelo always points out he was not on the banana. He was not actually on the boat. He was just on the vacation. But here they are on stage at the Espeas.

We all feel helpless and frustrated by the violence. We do. That's not acceptable. It's time to look in the mirror and ask ourselves. What are we doing to create change? It's not about being a role model. It's not about our responsibilities for the tradition of activism. I know tonight, we'll honor Muhammad Ali, the goat.

But to do his legacy any justice, let's use this moment as a call to action for all professional athletes to educate ourselves, explore these issues, speak up, use our influence, and renounce all violence. And most importantly, go back to our communities. Invest our time, our resources, help rebuild them, help strengthen them,

help change them. We all have to do better. Do you guys think that at that moment when LeBron's reading that, that he's saying, oh, they're talking to me. I need to do all these things. Because isn't this him basically saying, we need to educate ourselves? This is a call to action.

We need to use our position. Everything that we're saying we don't necessarily have to put on these athletes, he's saying, well, I'm putting this on myself right now. You got the speech writer putting Easter eggs with talking about LeBron basically the whole time, and LeBron doesn't realize it? Well, he's reading so clearly there from the prompter, but I do think the context on some of this, they are standing in the middle of America before all of this gets grabbed

and held against ESPN and Disney and becoming the word woke or whatever it is. Like the word woke and the weaponization of all that starts around. What is ESPN and Disney? What are they doing around this and Caitlin Jenner that's making me uncomfortable and making sports something different than it was. But I'm not totally sure as those four guys are reading that up there, that they know exactly what's happening in America or what's coming their way and what they'll have to face if they want to keep speaking up on this stuff.

Well, the amount of atrocities that I read to you that has happened to young black men or black men in this country, what's happening? And they've seen it all. And it was just, what can we do? We have to say something. We are public figures. All public figures were basically being asked about this. was in sort of their realm of understanding.

So then what is the next step on that? Okay. When I ask both of you, what's the theory then? If it's that overt and he's that aware of it, why is he doing it that way? Is it because racists buy sneakers too? Is it to protect business? Like, what's the accusation you guys are making

when he's not allowed to have an ignorance? Or to be so insulated that he's just an giantly famous rich person. And I don't know. Maybe it is possible that he's not that connected to Cleveland or his hometown that he's interested in every racial story that people are talking about.

Then say that. Then this is just a show. This is symbolism and it's just him using his name, but he doesn't really care that much. And this is why I'm saying if you can't care enough to learn about the Tamirai situation, then you don't really care and you are not the athlete that I want

to speak on behalf of every other athlete. There's always room to educate, right? But I don't know how much more education you need. As a black man from Northeast Ohio who grew up in less than ideal conditions, surrounded by other people like that, I don't know how much more education you need to hear about 12-year-old child shot by police officers. But neither one of you are answering my question. If it's what you're saying, the way you guys are framing this, it seems like this is inauthentic, doesn't care, not aligned with his principles. How could you not know about this?

This is not true. So why would he choose that path? It's going to seem rude. It's going to see, it's a level of selfishness. It's a level of him putting himself above everything else. He doesn't necessarily have time for other things. I can use my voice and my name for a cause if I think it's going to help. I don't have time to dig in to that cause and everything that comes with it. And there is an element to it of everything that comes with it is way different than it was in the past. There's a lot more at your front door when you do dip your toe. I think this is a part. It's pure reckless speculation, right? But hold on a second. Let me just find it real. quick for you. Forgive me for this for a second.

Time to throw away all journalistic credibility and get reckless. Here is something we like to call reckless speculation. Someone's got to clear me. You're good. Thank you. All right. So I think there's a difference between talking about police brutality in New York, police brutality in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri,

police brutality in Dallas and Minneapolis. Like, those are police departments that I don't have to deal with. Cleveland? I got to see them every day. We've got a great guest to discuss LeBron James and all of his activism. Jamel Hill joining us. Oh, nice. The neighborhood, the friendly neighborhood race lady.

Okay, so she is the definitive voice, if you will, at the intersection of sports, activism, and politics. She's a contributing writer for the Atlantic. And full disclosure, she worked with LeBron on a docu-series, literally called Shut Up and Dribble, and she's also worked with Colin Kaepernick on a project about his journey, which will get to. Jamel, in January of 2018, I don't think a lot of people remember this, sort of where the shut up and dribble came from. Carrie Champion, former ESPN colleague of ours, was doing a branded content series produced by Uninterrupted. She got word

that LeBron and KD, Kevin Durant, wanted to get together in the backseat of an Uber, and we talked to Carrie about this, but let's watch the video of her with LeBron. Warriors said, if we had an invite, we're not going to the White House. LeBron, you called the president of Bump. Yeah, straight up. Straight up. How do you describe the climate for an athlete with a platform nowadays that want to talk about what's happening in our world? Well, the climate is hot.

The number one job in America, the point of person, is someone who doesn't understand the people. And really don't give a fuck about the people. And while we cannot change what comes out of that man's mouth, we can continue to alert the people that watch us, that listen to us as this is not the way. I feel like our team as a country is not ran by a great coach. It's not even a surprise when he says something. It's not even surprised.

It's like laughable. It's laughable and it's scary. But it's also scary. Right, right. Because I shouldn't be numb to your racist comments. Right. Right. A couple things about that clip, Jamel, that get me, is I've said this a little bit about LeBron.

He seems most empowered when he's got a teammate next to him, right? And this with KD is just like feeling like he's really getting into it. I felt like once we got in the car, LeBron was very clear that he wanted to state a message. And I don't know if that was because he felt like he was the one that was going to deliver the message. And that wasn't necessarily KD's area because it has not been his situation. It's not his. Kevin Durant isn't known for being the person who wants to speak out. But I remember LeBron felt very, very intentional.

And he could see that both KD and I were very intrigued on his thoughts about the political process and what was going on in this country and how it found its way to intersect with culture and sports. But it also, and this is something I said before you jumped on with us, Jamel, is I want you to make me feel like you care. And in this clip, it really feels like a lot of this stuff had fine. finally hit home with LeBron and he was ready to say something about it, which Carrie said afterwards, she was pretty surprised that he was ready to sort of lay it all out there.

I remember distinctly, Kevin Durant even asking him questions. Like, wow, you know, that's interesting that that's your point of view. I think LeBron came to play in terms of I'm just going to lay it all out on the line. I've already said what I've said before. What I'm saying isn't new. Water is wet. Sky is blue. Yeah, I mean, I think for a lot of us who see athletes in that position, like a,

he's occupying a very rare air is that historically he some people consider him to be the greatest ever. He is the leader in his sport. He's the face of his league. And that's a pretty cozy position to be in just in the sense that you don't really have to say anything on the political front or the social justice front. And people are just fine with you. And there's an argument to be made that maybe you shouldn't give him what your stature is. But that's what I mean about LeBron kind of growing into the role. Like I think sometimes we have this false assumption or false expectation that as soon as an athlete gets a platform that they should automatically be ready to speak up.

And if we think about our own voices and our own journey as people who are in media, people who are journalists, it didn't come that way. It had to come through experience. It had to come through seeing. It had to come through observing. And I think it was the same way with LeBron Jane. As we had reached in his mind a critical mass point in our country where we had a leader in office who did not respect the office and certainly didn't respect a lot of the constituents in which he was put in charge of governing. And I don't know if he knew this was going to be his moment. I know that somebody in his position has to be kind of

calculated about when you speak out, what you choose to speak out on. But I think the moment came to him and he decided, you know what, I'm ready right now to really go all the way with my opinions about the president in a way that I haven't really engaged politically. So, When we walked away, I was like, we have something so special. What we have seen is an athlete, a generational athlete, and others would say, arguably, the best to ever do it, speak unapologetically about being a black man in this country, being a black person in this country, and what it means and the cost that comes with that. He was very clear about, I'm a rich black man, but I live in Brentwood, and they let me know that I'm still black,

no matter how much money I make, no matter how successful I am, I understand that I am a black man, at the end of the day, first and foremost. And so when we left, I immediately felt like that was very special and significant because, and we hate to do comparisons, but no athlete of this caliber had ever done this, especially in basketball. We didn't see Michael Jordan do it. We definitely didn't see Magic Johnson do it. That was a different generation, a different approach, a get-along approach. LeBron was like, I'm 10 toes down. I am saying this and I mean it. And so for that in itself, I knew it was historical. I do want to get the reaction that got the reaction.

Laura Ingraham on Fox News reacted this way. Must they run their mouths like that? Unfortunately, a lot of kids and some adults take these ignorant comments seriously. Look, there might be a cautionary lesson in LeBron for kids. This is what happens when you attempt to leave high school a year early to join the NBA. And it's always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid a hundred million dollars a year to bounce a ball. Oh, and LeBron and Kevin, you're great players, but no one voted for you. Millions elected Trump to be their coach. So keep the political

commentary to yourself, or as someone once said, shut up and dribble. Must they, Dan? Man, that triggered you, didn't it? I'm not racist. They're lippy. They're lippy. It's Not that I'm racist. I know that they was doing a lot of work right there. That sounds even worse now. I've said this before and, you know, just to give you all kind of a full view of this. So at the time, I was already working on shut up and dribble, but it wasn't called shut up and dribble.

It was a nebulous project that, frankly, there was some difficulty in finding what the story actually was. To be honest, it was a little all over the place. We knew that we wanted something with sports and social justice and looking at the history of activism. And there was nothing really tying the story together. And as soon as Laura Ingram says, shut up and dribble, it was like, we got it. So I give her a lot of credit and I thank her because she kind of gave us. she gave us the structure that we needed to finish the piece because we, while we had a lot of great material, great interviews, great footage, it wasn't cohesive yet until she said that. So thank you, Laura. I appreciate it.

Well, where does LeBron, though, disappoint you here the way that he disappoints, is he, because you want him to care a little more? And where is fair to put the expectations for him, Jamel, when we just showed you a clip in which he was talking about Trump and offering no expectations. on Kevin Durant, who didn't seem to have much of anything to say next to him, because it's often fair not to think that every single athlete should have an opinion exactly like yours. And so we don't expect anything from Kevin Durant on this front, do we? No, all of the focus and attention is on LeBron. And, you know, I have to admit, this is a question I struggle with all the time, whether or not it is a obligation or whether or not it should be something that you have to be led to do.

depending on the situation, I could land on either side of it. And that is just because I recognize the inherent unfairness of the fact that not just black athletes, but black people in general, who did not create racism, who did not create white supremacy, are then forced to be the ones to bring all the solutions to the table, the other ones forced to create the conversations and the dialogue. All of it is on us and we're the ones who are most victimized by what is happening. And to me, what it does is weaponize a sudden level of incompetence around people who are not black, right? It's like it allows people to happily be ignorant and they're never tasked and never get the responsibility of having to do and ask something more. Because no white athlete is ever going to be asked that kind of question. I mean, it just doesn't happen. Like they're not going to be asked like, well, what do you say to the white people who say,

this. They're not asked for the accountability of what other white people do. And black people are asked to be accountable for not only what black people say, but for what white people say. And when I think about it in that context, it allows me, even in moments where I wish an athlete, where I wish LeBron would have been stronger on something. Yeah, I still remember what he said about Tamir Rice. To me, that was a missed opportunity and a failed moment. But at the same time, I have to then have a dialogue with myself. say, am I asking too much? This man is here to play basketball. He didn't sign up to be some kind of activist leader, even though he's in a position to have the most change because by nature

of his influence. So I think we also have to understand it in that context. Let's fast forward to 2019-20 because we haven't even gotten to COVID. So we've got LeBron first. He's a Laker. We should know this. Stays quiet when Darry shows his support for Hong Kong. The Lakers are playing in China. That same season, Kobe passes away, COVID starts, the NBA stops, and then a Minnesota Cup kneels on the neck of George Floyd for nine minutes and 29 seconds kills him. LeBron post side-by-side photos of Derek Chauvin kneeling and Colin Kaepernick kneeling to his Instagram followers and he says, do you understand now or is it still blurred to you? That summer, he started the more than a vote campaign. Now we're in the bubble. This is just while they're in the bubble.

a Wisconsin cop shoots Jacob Blake seven times in the back. Kyle Rittenhouse shoots two protesters with an assault rifle. The bucks go out and strike, and so all of sports go on strike. LeBron gets annoyed, and he walked out of a player's only meeting, supposedly because it was kind of all over the place. But then he calls up Obama with Chris Paul, Carmelo, Russell, Westbrook, and Andre Aguadala, and they demand action from the owners. Even Michael Jordan got a call. But then LeBron, what did he do?

He just played basketball and won a championship. So I'm not sure, Jamel, what you make? of what he did there. Did he do much while it was there at his doorstep and the whole world was watching? Or was it just more of him just kind of, I don't know, group thinking and just kind of going with whatever everybody else said? I mean, I think the players were understandably emotional,

but because of the situation with the lockdown being in the bubble, I don't think they honestly knew what to do. And they knew that they felt something. They knew that something wasn't right. They knew that something needed to change. But I don't think they actually had an organized plan of how they needed to change it. And that's really no fault of theirs.

They're not professional activists. Like, if we go back and look at the Montgomery Bus Boycott, for example, that was plotted, strategized, executed, two years. And I don't know why we think on the fly that black athletes should be able to create a national movement or create like some kind of substantive change without research, without strategy, without talking to people on the ground. Like, that was just all happening in real time. And they reacted very emotionally.

And I know that they called Obama trying to get some leadership. And if I recall, one of the main things, you know, his point was that they still needed to play, that people still needed to see them. I kind of disagree with that. But, you know, it's their careers. It's not mine. So I understood his perspective. But I think it was one of those things where I'm not sure LeBron knew what to do. And I think that's fine, too.

Why was that not fine on Tamir Rice? I think for when you look at the situation. And again, I don't know if today LeBron would have that same response. And naturally, just because LeBron is in his position, that doesn't mean he can't internalize some of the same damaging tropes that affect all of us because we're conditioned in this country. You know, a lot of times because we're used to violence happening so frequently, whether it be state-section violence or intercommunity violence, in the black community, our immediate thought process is how could they have prevented their own

demise? And so instead of saying, yo, it's wrong for a trained professional to not know the difference between a toy gun and a real gun. And in this situation, to be so panicked and scared. And with that, I don't even say panicked and scared because that lets him off the hook. But to react that recklessly, instead of putting the onus on the adult, DeBron's default was, or his go-to response was, this is why don't let my kids play with guns. I was like, it's not about the guns. It's about this system of violence that seems completely sanctioned by not just our country, but by a system that is supposed to be protecting us. And so just because your LeBron James doesn't mean that you can't internalize oppression like everybody else. Would you say the largest victory for LeBron in terms

of just public stance when he dips into the political world was in the 2020 election? Because we read your column from the Atlantic after Trump lost in 2020. And you wrote, quote, The election is a clear demonstration of why athletes should use their public platform to advocate for justice and democracy. Now that black athletes have seen how powerful their voices can be, the stick to sports narrative may be gone for good. I don't know if that ended up actually happening,

but was this LeBron's biggest tough? I didn't know. It didn't end up having it. She got that one wrong. She, and it's for all time, and you just read it right to her face. But did he pick a villain and at least defeat that villain for the time being? It worked for the time being. And now that we look back on what's happened in the course of five years,

and it's funny because I think I did write this for the Atlantic for 2024. I'm pretty sure that I did, leading it to the 2024 election about all that momentum that was gained in 2020. And I realized it was a very unique moment, not just because of COVID, but because you actually had two pretty outspoken leagues that were both all in both leagues that being the WNBA and the NBA where all the players were actually together. It's so much easier to organize when everybody's there, right? And so you had that and you had the fact that you had players in the street who were protesting when George Floyd was murdered. And so it was a very rare time that you would see that. And so my obviously poor assumption was that that was something.

something that would be a blueprint and would show them that it works. And 2024 rolled around and you barely heard from athletes in the political space. I did not see many of them, if any, I'm struggling to think right now campaigning for Kamala Harris or just even encouraging people to vote. You saw some things here and there. Like I know the NFL ran something, but that same energy that was there in 2020 was not there at all in 2024. You go back two years of 2022, actually. And that's, we actually read a, reread Will Leach column in New York Magazine in which this was just before the midterms in 2022, which he was, LeBron didn't respond when J.D. Vance called him vile. So he wasn't really going

back and forth. The more than a vote campaign thing kind of grew quiet. And then there was this quote from it. He said, surely athletes saw how much shit James was taking and concluded, totally understandably, no thanks. And so he was kind of a human shield for for a lot. Did die down there because of that 2020 victory, and it's just like, hey, we're in a victory lap mode. Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of it. And I also think that sometimes the examples of what the consequence can be can feel louder than the examples of what the progress is. You look at Colin Kaepernick, and I contend that of the many ways that he was let down was because none of the players really stood up for him. And, you know, like, of course, some imitated his demonstration.

but you needed players en masse in far more massive numbers, not necessarily protesting. Even if you didn't protest, you at least needed to let it be known. It is not okay to exile and to suppress somebody for expressing this kind of belief. And they didn't do that. And they didn't protect their own rights to speak up. And as a result, the NFL was able to quickly get them in order. And so I think the same thing kind of happened with LeBron is that even though, you know, LeBron didn't lose any money. You know, he didn't lose a contract.

He didn't lose his job. He's still a great player. He's still celebrated. But it got him permanently in political crosshairs. And that's where a lot of players don't want to be. Like every time if LeBron says anything related to any kind of social justice or expresses any kind of political opinion, it's going to be content on Fox for weeks. and a lot of players, they just don't want to smoke. I think you might have gotten a piece of that wrong, though.

I think the China thing did cost him money. And I think getting close to the fire on the sneaker stuff made him say, I'm not going to talk anymore about anything that I don't know anything about. I think that's a fair assessment. So, yeah, I mean, I stand corrected. I think when you're dealing with something as complicated as that, as a geopolitical issue, is that we know that there are. are there are ways in which you don't have to always involve yourself.

You got to pick your spots. But obviously, that was very much tied to the NBA and how they make money. And did LeBron lose some credibility there? I think it's fair to see it that way, for sure. I thought it was his worst public moment. To me, that was that was. Worse than Tamir Rice? I thought, I thought it was more public.

I don't know why. I saw more of it than I saw the Tamir Rice response. I think, I think it was the conflict of interest, right? Like it was the clear conflict of interest of there's a reason why he's not going to be vocal on this. And it's not because he's not educated enough, although that would have been, I guess, an understandable statement. It's because, hey, this is where my bread is buttered. I'm not about to kill that golden goose. He was triaging his priorities live as we were watching.

Yeah. And I think that to see someone be compromised so clearly, I think that's what makes it. a more jarring thing than Tamir Rice. Meanwhile, this was kind of more, it was, first of all, it has already been a huge story because Darry was really the kicking off point, because the NBA was a kicking off point. And then the hypocrisy of people saying, oh, the NBA is in bed with China as if the rest of America isn't.

And it's not as if he was interviewed the second after he saw the tweet. Right. He had time to come up with something and he was still just caught in there. But you guys are doing something interesting here, because I would understand why Jamel would say and sound almost hurt in saying it. More than Tamir Rice? That one hurt you guys more than Tamir Rice because on behalf of, look, I don't want to speak for black people, but on that one, LeBron, we wanted you to, like, we wanted you to, at the very least, no,

come down from the bubble or the ivory tower and be like, acknowledge here that you have some knowledge of this. Like the hurt in that is different than a world away and some political, you know, weaponized thing. He wasn't making money off of the atrocities that happened in Cleaver. He was making money despite the atrocities that are having it were happening. And also, my father, I wouldn't say hurt. I would just say it was a bigger kind of fiasco of a moment. And that's not my personal pain or disappointment in him.

That's just knowing the gravity of that situation for the exact reason as he just gave. Well, exactly. And there was, I think that's what makes the Tamir Rice moment more disqualification. because there was no money at stake for LeBron James. There was nothing at stake. It would have cost him nothing to say something. And listen, everybody's compromised. Let's just keep this real. Like, we're all compromised in some respect. But with China, as a mean just said earlier, America is compromised. This is not just the NBA issue. The running joke is don't let China cash the check. Like, that's about our whole country. And the level of at least to some degree, I can understand

when you are compromised, better than when you aren't. No, no, you've absolutely changed my mind on this. Tremere Rice was his worst situation because of what I said earlier that people might not remember it was after the sentencing that he had this. So it was a year later that he had time to think about it, to do research on it, and he's still effectively no comment at it. So you're right. I've switched my thought.

The China situation is his second most embarrassing public moment. So where are we now with LeBron James? He's obviously the imperfect spokesman, but he is still very much a spokesman. for athletes, for black men. Where are we, Jamel, with LeBron and sort of gauging his public persona when he gets out there in terms of politics? Despite his missteps that he's had, both globally and domestically, I do think that people will generally view him as somebody who care and as somebody who tried to do the right thing. We can debate whether or not that's good enough, whether that is too low of a bar. but when you think about all the expectations,

all the pressure that has been on him since he was literally a teenager, I think he has more to be proud of than in the social activism space than he doesn't. And I think that's probably all we can really ask for, given that activism is not his first job. You know, there are plenty of athletes who get the mantle of being a face in the league and don't really do shit with it. Listen, a lot of Kobe Bryant's awareness didn't come till late in his career, okay? Because my entire relationship with Kobe started because of comments I felt were tone deaf

that he said about Trayvon Martin. But I think because myself and other people called him out about it, it caused him to look at the issue differently. And then after that, he became very involved in Trayvon Martin's parents, the foundations and the activism that they did. And my last interview with him when I asked Kobe if he was still playing in the NBA and when Colin Kaepernick took a knee and he said he would. And I don't know if you get that answer from Kobe five years in or seven years in or even 10 years into his career. So it just shows you that these guys are learning in real time about what it means to have that platform and they are going to get it right sometimes.

And there's going to be a couple ones they wish they had back. But if you're LeBron, when your career is done, I think he will be able to be able to be. to positively stand on his record as somebody who tried to do the right thing most of the time. Jamel, last thing before we let you go. You did this whole interview behind you is a bunch of shoes in a box that says, Givanchi, and I'm just wondering how much do you think? How much do you think the shoes behind you cost if you totaled them up? See, you know what, Izzy, this is why I hate this question.

That's wrong. That's wrong. I hate this question. First of all, let me just say this. These are not all my shoes. Only half on the, what would be to my right, those are all my husband's shoes. My shoes are here on the left. Oh, wow. Wow, what just happened there was Izzy was saluting your man's shoes and putting the trope on you.

Right, exactly. The givanchet, oh, actually, no, yes, the gifon-cha box, that's his. That ain't mine. Hey, look, you're the only person there. I see a bunch of shoes. I'm assuming they're yours. So my bad, you know. But the reason I'm.

I hate this question is because my mother told me to stop doing interviews in our dressing room because she's like, people are going to look at your shoes and judge you. And they're going to wonder how I'm going to see your shoes and look at that. Look at that. Always listen to mom. Yes. And the next time I do an interview with y'all, I'll be doing it for, I'm doing it from my family dollar closet, which is around the corner of where there is. Or the old Navy shoes.

Thank you, Jebel. Thanks, dear. All right, thanks, guys. Okay, so the homework for this week. It's an actual book we're reading. It's called There's Always This Year on Basketball and Ascension. It's by Haneve Ador Rakeeb. He's a poet, a MacArthur Genius, a finalist for the National Book Award,

an Ohio native, and he'll join us on the season finale. There will be a quiz. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if.

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