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Following a widely panned one-hour special announcing his decision to take his talents to the Miami Heat, two-time reigning MVP LeBron James become the butt of derision and jokes (in that order) all over America. He was painted by much of the media and effectively all of Cleveland as a modern-day Benedict Arnold, a man who not only spit on his people, but stuck them on national TV to do so.Pundits warned that LeBron's reputation, until then quite positive, would never recover. Luckily, there's something that measures the reputations of celebrities. It's called Q Score, and it is handed down by the branding gods for PR flaks to pore over (and stress over).
The results for LeBron? Darren Rovell of CNBC reports LeBron's Q Score has plummeted. Last January, 24 percent of the general population had positive feelings about King James. Post-Decision, that figure is at 14 percent. Similarly, LeBron's negatives have gone from 22 percent to 39 percent, the sixth-highest figure among all tracked sports figures.
That's bad, and I don't know how LeBron can sleep at night. (Probably under a quilt of ostrich feathers wrapped in fresh silk spun by enslaved silkworms, on an apartment-sized waterbed alternately filled with cognac and Pérignon.) But I'm drawn instead to that last fact -- not the cognac-champagne bed filling schedule, but that LeBron is still just the sixth most hated sports figure. Who on Earth do people like less than LeBron right now? And wait, there's an NBA player on that list? There's an NBA player more hated than LeBron James?
Five-time NBA champion and former MVP Kobe Bryant.
Kobe, Michael Vick, Tiger Woods, Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens are more hated than LeBron. It's an interesting collection -- Ochocinco and Owens have never experienced a real scandal (as Tiger did) or been charged with (Kobe) or convicted of (Vick) a serious crime. They are just egomaniacs; substitute the scientific term for "self-important weirdo," if you please. LeBron falls under that category.
Still, Kobe's arrest and court battle was years ago. Why is he still so hated? Luckily for LeBron, for much of the population, Kobe also happens to fall under the Ochocino-Owens phylum. So as long as King James manages to keep his name out of the booking log, it appears LeBron will avoid ever being named the Most Hated NBA Player.
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