Lakers' LeBron James under fire for national anthem 'disrespect'

Billy Heyen

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Lakers' LeBron James under fire for national anthem 'disrespect' image

LeBron James has been in the spotlight for a long time.

On Christmas Day, that spotlight shone on James in a way that angered plenty of basketball fans.

A video emerged of James during the pregame national anthem, and it appeared he was practicing his golf swing.

Here's the clip:

@espn #lebron #golf #basketball #lakers #nba ♬ original sound - ESPN

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Comments on that video included variations of the words disrespect, disrespectful and disrespecting. 

"And per usual disrespecting our national anthem," commented one person.

"Disrespecting the flag in the country that made him a millionaire," another wrote.

Other commentors made jokes that LeBron had to get stretched out to go on the court and flop to try and draw fouls.

There were a few who pushed back on the idea that there was a larger message here and defended LeBron for just loosening up to play a basketball game in mere minutes.

"Bro are yall ok? He's just warming up to play a 48+ minute high intensity basketball game. That doesn't show disrespect. Everyone does it," one user responded.

James went out and had 18 points and five assists in a relatively tame performance, and the Rockets beat the Lakers comfortably, 119-96.

It's a record 23rd season in the NBA for James. He'll turn 41 years old on Tuesday, and he's the league's all-time leading scorer, a four-time champion, four-time MVP and 21-time All-Star.

He first emerged into the public sphere as a high schooler on the cover of Sports Illustrated that was headlined, "THE CHOSEN ONE."

Since then, James has delivered on pretty much all of the hype and avoided major controversy.

This clip has James a bit under fire, though. People are certainly upset about his seemingly nonchalant behavior during The Star-Spangled Banner.

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