Los Angles Lakers star LeBron James has a message for the owner of a Cincinnati bar who says he will not show another NBA game until James is “expelled” from the league. The ban is in response to some contentious tweets James posted concerning the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Ma’khia Bryant by police on April 20.
Undeterred, the basketball player shared a sarcastic tweet that demonstrated how unbothered he was by the threats.
“Aww Damn! I was headed there to watch our game tonight and have a drink! Welp,” he wrote.
Linne’s Pub in Delhi Township originally made the statement in a Facebook post on Wednesday that read, “If anyone wants to watch an NBA game, don’t come to Linnie’s Pub. We will not air them until LeBron James has been expelled from the NBA.”
The bar’s owner, Jay Linneman, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that as a public figure, James should keep quiet about political and social issues.
“They just need to play the game and that’s it,” he said. “Their opinion doesn’t really matter. They’re using their position to push their opinions, and that’s just not right.”
Linneman also said that if a high-ranking official like President Joe Biden or Donald Trump made comments of that nature there would be calls for “impeachment.”
James was slammed by critics last week for making a Twitter post that featured a photo of Nicholas Reardon, the Columbus police officer who gunned down Bryant and writing “YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY.” The post referred the guilty verdict of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.
James later deleted the tweet and clarified that he made the original comments out of “ANGER.”
“ANGER does any of us any good and that includes myself!” he tweeted. “Gathering all the facts and educating does though! My anger still is here for what happened that lil girl. My sympathy for her family and may justice prevail!”
He added, “I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer. it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY.”
