About

LeBron Raymone James is a professional basketball player and forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers. James is considered a highly influential athlete and has accumulated a substantial amount of wealth through endorsement deals.

Basketball Career

In 2003 NBA Draft, James was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers and was named "Rookie of the Year" during his first season. During the 2004 – 2005 season, James became the youngest player in history to record a triple-double. In 2006, James became the youngest winner of the All-Star Game MVP Award. In the following season, James won the award for a second time. In the 2008 – 2009 season, James was awarded second place for the Defensive Player of the Year award. In 2010, James became a free agent and was signed by the Miami Heat.

Online History

In March 2009, LeBron launched the @KingJames^[1] Twitter feed. On April 3rd, his official Facebook page was launched. In the next five years, the Twitter feed gained over 13.6 million followers and the Facebook^[2] page received more than 20 million likes.

LeBron Opts Out

In June 2014, LeBron announced he would be opting out of the final year of his contract with the Miami Heat in order to become a free agent. Following the revelation, many Internet users reacted by posting image macros joking about the news (shown below).

LeBron's Decision

Amid rumors that LeBron would be signing back with the Cleveland Cavaliers on July 10th, the @SportsNation^[3] Twitter feed launched the hashtag "#BeforeLeBronDecides" for fans to tweet jokes about unlikely events that would occur prior to LeBron's decision.

The same day, the International Business Times^[4] published an article highlighting several notable tweet examples (shown below). According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,^[5] the hashtag was tweeted upwards of 100,000 times in the first 24 hours. On July 11th, LeBron announced he would indeed be returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

LeBron's Decision 2018

On July 1st, 2018, LeBron James signed a four-year contract with the Los Angeles Lakers after several years with the Cavaliers. It was speculated that LeBron chose to leave Cleveland because the team could not provide enough talent around him to seriously compete for a championship, especially after they lost the previous two NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors.^[6] Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who wrote a scathing editorial about LeBron after he left for Miami, wrote a much more thankful editorial about LeBron, thanking him for his time in Cleveland and for winning a championship for the city.^[7]

NBA fans joked about the move on Twitter. A Twitter Moment^[8] of jokes included many about LeBron's former teammate J.R. Smith, who infamously made an error during Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals, leading to the LeBron James NBA Finals Reaction meme (shown below). A tweet by CBS Sports gained over 10,000 retweets and 30,000 likes (shown below, left). A tweet by @LakeShowFamily joking about J.R. Smith gained over 1,800 retweets and 7,000 likes (shown below, right).

Also of note, the Los Angeles Lakers signed Lance Stephenson, the antagonist in the Lance Stephenson Blowing in LeBron James’ Ear, making James and Stephenson teammates.

Related Memes

Lelbron

Lelbron is a photoshop meme featuring a picture of James wearing pair of black-rimmed glasses and a smile that involves superimposing a cutout of LeBron’s face into other base images of various contexts.

LeBroning

LeBroning is a photo fad in which the participant stages an exaggerated dive after intentionally bumping into an unsuspecting passerby and shares the recorded footage on Vine. The fad was named after James, who has earned a reputation for frequently resorting to "flop," or the act of intentional falling upon slightest contact with an opposing player in order to draw a personal foul call.

Lance Stephenson Blowing in LeBron James' Ear

Lance Stephenson Blowing in LeBron James’ Ear is a photoshop meme based on a close-up footage of the Indiana Pacers shooting guard trying to taunt the Miami Heat forward by breathing into his ear during the fifth game of the NBA Eastern Conference finals.

"LeBron Travelled"

"LeBron Traveled" is an expression often used in YouTube comments among basketball enthusiasts to mock James for performing the basketball violation known as "traveling."

Search Interest

External References