Honestly that is pretty lame. My favorite saying related to sportsmanship is when you get in the end zone act like you have been there for (and barry sanders was a great example of this). If Lebron wants to be considered one of the greatest of all time this stuff and the Halloween stuff and the warriors t shirt is beneath him (and it should be for the rest of the cavs as well).
You must not like Bird or Russell then?
Russell's First Law: You must make the other player do what you want him to do. How? You must start him thinking. If he is thinking instead of doing, he is yours. There is no time in basketball to think: "This has happened; this is what I must do next." In the amount of time it takes to think through that semicolon, it is already too late.
Russell's Second Law: You got to have the killer instinct. If you do not have it, forget about basketball and go into social psychology or something. If you sometimes wonder if you've got it, you ain't got it. No ****cats, please. The killer instinct, by my definition, is the ability to spot—and exploit—a weakness in your opponent. There are psychological subrules in this category.
To wit: always try a rookie. If you score on him and he thinks that maybe you scored because you are Bill Russell the superstar, he is yours forever after and you can wear him like a bauble on a charm bracelet.
To wit, further: always try a veteran. In my first year in pro basketball I came up against veteran Johnny Kerr, now with Baltimore. I blocked so many shots on him that first night—perhaps you remember—that he was wild with rage. He was so fired up they had to take him out of the game. That is frustration. That is also psychology. (And I might point out that as soon as he calmed down enough that season Kerr deliberately changed his style of shooting when he played against Boston. That is a kind of reverse psychology.)
Russell's Third Law: Be cute but not cuddly. I mean, you should be nice at all times, but there is a lot to be said for an elbow in the chops when all else fails. This is forceful psychology. Last resort stuff.
Russell's Final Law: Remember that basketball is a game of habit. In getting good at it, we develop certain habits. Therefore, if you make a player deviate from his habits—by psyching him—you've got him.
http://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/5154/the-mind-games-of-bill-russell
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/3m1w22/bill_russell_how_i_psych_them/
http://www.foxsports.com/nba/story/boston-celtics-larry-bird-trash-talking-genius-031215
This is not grade school, people take any edge they can get in the pros. There are not participation awards. Every level of play you go up it gets dirtier. I won't go into the tricks we used to use in terms of cold water and heat in locker rooms.
People really need to stop beating this phrase to death. What I said has absolutely nothing to do with a participation award. If I said the Warriors should get rings too because they played really hard and had a great year, then what you were talking about made sense. Since I didn't and it doesn't, what you said just makes you look like someone that wants to use this tired phrase in situations it doesn't even apply.
There is also a difference between most of the stuff you are talking about and hanging posters, and putting up halloween props. For one Lebron is just trying to do social marketing with this stuff and be cool. He is putting up pictures on social media and trying to get followers and likes. Teams trying to make the other teams locker room have cold water is actually trying to screw with them so they lose they game.
I also think you should be pretty embarrassed as a Celtic fan comparing the stuff that Russell and Bird did on the court with the stuff we are talking about with Lebron here. If Lebron came out on the floor in game 7 last year and said to Curry and Steph at tip off. "What are you guys doing to do to celebrate second place?" I would respect that as him having confidence and being the greatest (Much like Bird at the 3pt contest). It is a whole different game talking about a game you won last year after the fact by hanging up a picture or making halloween designs.
I generally like your posts man but this was one of the weaker and more embarassing one's I have ever seen. Try again.
Edit: As much as I liked Bird growing up there certainly would have been things he did that would have been really embarassing in the age of social media and he was lucky to not have the spotlight on some of the crappier things he did.
Also, think about the kinds of things that Russell had to deal with in terms of racism and how he handled it. Think about how Lebron threw a hissy fit for weeks because he believed Phil Jackson belittled a few of his friends by calling them a "posse" and made a false racist charge. Lebron is the most coddled athlete of our generation and I still am in shock you tried to equate him to Russell. Sigh. Brutal.
