Hype and Circumstance

I was listening to some sports commentator saying how, back in the day, he had felt the hype surrounding Lebron James was too much, but now that he's seen what Lebron can do, he's man enough to retract his statements. Lebron is that good.

But why? Why must he retract any of what he said?

Somehow, among sports know-it-alls, winning allows us to forgive all. Was it so long ago that Kobe was accused of rape? But then he began scoring 50 point games, and the subject seemed like a distant memory. When you win, people don't seem to care.

Even if Lebron is a good guy, even if he's the next Magic Johnson, we can still say that any hype, no matter how good the person is, is undeserved. Sports pundits like to be prognosticators, and as is often the case, people guess wrong far more than they guess right.

So people might have guessed wrong about Lebron. The sentiment expressed then should not depend on whether Lebron was a successful player, and a person people should emulate, or whether he is a flameout, or a malcontent, where commentators layer scorn upon them like Pac-mac Jones.

Don't let success get to your head when making judgements in sports.