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The New York Tabloids Had A Whole Lot Of Fun With The Heat’s Loss This Morning

The New York Post and New York Daily News weren’t happy with LeBron James‘ conduct last summer. No, not for his free agency spectacle. No, not for leaving Cleveland, the only pro franchise he’d ever known and the one closest to his hometown. No, not for joining forces with another superstar rather than blazing his own trail. No, not even for The Decision. The New York tabloids were mat at LeBron for the capital offense of not coming to New York.

And, per usual, they weren’t shy about expressing it. LeBron made the back page of both the Post and Daily News for the Heat’s first visit to Madison Square Garden, one of which contained a surreal Photoshop of LeBron’s head on a chicken and the rather nonsensical headline “LeChicken.” It’s not even a pun. We don’t get it.

This all brings us to the present day: if you follow the NBA closely enough that you are reading this, you know that the Heat lost the NBA Finals last night. Do the Post and Daily News still not comprehend that a person may not view New York City as the end-all, be-all of everything in the known universe, may indeed choose to spend a part of their life elsewhere, and even be happy about it? You tell us. Via Jimmy Traina:

Like…we know these are the tabloids, and they’re supposed to go nuts with this sort of thing, and maybe this had more to do with general LeBron hate than left-over resentment for not choosing the Knicks last summer. But…here’s today’s Plain Dealer front page from Cleveland. Yeah, they’re a more “serious” paper, but when LeBron left, they did this. This morning? Just a sad LeBron face (an excellent one, by the way), and then going about their business.

LeBron deserves criticism for the way he played in the Finals (and to be fair, the Post also mocked Dwyane Wade), but seeing the harshest of it come from a New York paper (though we should note the Miami Herald didn’t take it easy, either) when he has nothing to do with New York doesn’t make sense to us. Then again, these are the New York tabloids we’re talking about, so we’re not sure if this is supposed to make sense.