In clarifying his comments from a day prior, Walt Frazier said he was disappointed that a role model of LeBron James\u2019 reputation and stature appeared uninterested in his team.<\/p>\n
But the Knicks legend said his comments were borne out of surprise with James\u2019 behavior, and not meant as a criticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re above that, you\u2019re better than that. You can\u2019t be like the proletariat, you\u2019re The King,\u201d Frazier said during Monday\u2019s MSG telecast of Knicks against Toronto. \u201cThat\u2019s the title he wanted. People say he\u2019s like our Muhammad Ali. He speaks for black people. He has a school where he\u2019s teaching kids to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a timeout in the first quarter of Sunday\u2019s Lakers-Knicks game, James was spotted on the end of his team\u2019s bench and disengaged from coach Luke Walton\u2019s huddle. It prompted Frazier to declare on the air, \u201cWhen you\u2019re the face of the NBA, you should be more a part of your team\u2026 And right now you see he doesn\u2019t really care.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Walt “Clyde” Frazier was disappointed in The King’s behavior. (David Zalubowski \/ AP)<\/p>\n
Since James\u2019 desire has been a hot topic and the Lakers are a dumpster fire this season, Frazier\u2019s commentary kickstarted articles and debates in sports talk shows.<\/p>\n
Frazier added more context Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy thing is the NBA is like the Olympics, there\u2019s a torch that is passed,\u201d Frazier said. \u201cFrom Russell to Chamberlain to… So when you\u2019re the King and LeBron is the King and the best player in the game, you can\u2019t be like a common player. Like if that was some other player I wouldn\u2019t have said anything. But when you\u2019re the face of the league man, you can\u2019t do what other people do. You have to do the right thing. And millions of kids that saw that will say, well if LeBron did that it\u2019s okay for me to do that. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In clarifying his comments from a day prior, Walt Frazier said he was disappointed that a role model of LeBron James’ reputation and stature appeared uninterested in his team. But the Knicks legend said his comments were borne out of surprise with James’ behavior, and not meant as a criticism. “You’re above that, you’re better than that. You can’t be like the proletariat, you’re The King,” Frazier said during Monday’s MSG telecast of Knicks against Toronto. “That’s the title he wanted. People say he’s like our Muhammad Ali. He speaks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17879,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17877\/revisions\/17879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}