News Flash: Winning doesn't change you

I am saddened and angry at all this nonsense about how it's impossible to "hate LeBron James" anymore.

I want to be on the record as never criticizing him for leaving Cleveland during free agency to move to Miami. I have always liked him. However, to suggest LeBron is suddenly a likable person if you were on the hate train is utter ridiculousness.

I challenge anyone to find a person who is fundamentally changed as a person because they won something, or were at the top of their respective career fields. A person's personality might get changed a little bit as would anyone who's accomplished a life-long dream, but chances are it's in a marginal way. All the sudden, LeBron is the Dali Llama of basketball players? All the sudden, people who thought he was a coward for quitting on his home town to play with other stars in the league are expected to not find fault with him?

If the argument is based off people "hating" him because of his ability to play the game and his playstyle, then okay yeah. He answered the calls of the critics by being an unstoppable force all playoffs long, if not all season long. But to suggest you can't keep hating LeBron now that he's a championship is a highlight of a faulty thought process America seems to embrace.

Winning is not everything, not does it absolve mistakes on the path to success. It is just success. Nothing more, nothing less. There are really shitty people who "win" in life every day. Does that mean everyone needs to behave as those people, or forgive those people for being awful? Not in the least. It's something we need to stop, as a society. We need to stop empowering people who step on others get ahead in life.

I just feel like there is no incentive to be a nice guy. Whenever you say to someone, "Okay I will come fill in for you this weekend," they never return that favor. It's just you giving of yourself. It's wrong of our society to think that it's entirely up to a person if they give of themselves, and if they do it they should ask for nothing in return.

I am going off on tangents related to my personal life now so I will try to regroup: LeBron is the same guy he was a week ago. He still helped create a super team and a potential Eastern Conference dynasty for the first time since the Bulls. My opinion of him as a player has not changed in the least. I've always thought he was a great player, and this win doesn't validate HIM, but it validates the concept that an entire team has to win.