The Most Regrettable Moments of LeBron James’s Career

LeBron James is a member of the Los Angeles Lakers (still getting used to writing that) and might one day go down as the greatest basketball player of all-time. We’ll save that debate for another time.

Playing in his 16th year in the NBA, James stills owns the title as the league’s best and at age 33 we’re still waiting for LeBron’s decline to begin. He surely didn’t show it in his first week as a Laker. In the spotlight since high school, LeBron’s exceeded the absurdly high expectations on him—on and off the court.

James has done a phenomenal job of avoiding major controversies during his storied career, largely evading non-basketball related criticism. He’s a great father, an elite businessman, a spokesperson for social issues, and incredibly charitable. It seems as if he can do no wrong and has no flaws. But at the end of day, he’s human like all of us.

From confiscating video evidence of him getting dunked on to injuring his hand punching a whiteboard after Game 1 of the NBA Finals, we're guessing there are a few times LeBron wishes he had a do-over. Don't get it twisted: none of these moments will in any, way, shape, or form tarnish LeBron’s sterling resume. He's a living legend and a worthy role model. Rather, we came up with this list to remind everyone that even the best of us have moments we'd prefer to hit reset on. Here are the seven most regrettable moments in LeBron James’s career:

If a college player dunked on LeBron at his own camp in 2018, even James would have no chance of stopping that footage from going viral. It would be on Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all over people’s iMessages in a flash. Since it was nine years ago when this episode happened, when social media was not as prevalent as it is today, he had a chance to stop that tape from going viral. He and Nike allegedly did all they could to stop Xavier’s Jordan Crawford posterization from leaking out during the summer of 2009. It still found its way online and was plastered all over the Internet. At the end of the day, every basketball player that contests as many shots as LeBron will eventually be dunked so (allegedly) this was petty on LeBron’s part.  

#PinstripePride pic.twitter.com/BzzOnlIkFK

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) October 5, 2017

As a Ohio native, it was weird to see LeBron rock a Yankees cap during the 2007 postseason. But if that was his team growing up, you can’t blame him. This wouldn’t be an issue if LeBron had kept this same energy 10 years later when the Yankees and Indians met in the postseason once again. James showed up in Indians’ gear and made it clear he was rooting for the hometown team, who happened to be the favorites. The Indians went on to blow a 2-0 series lead to the Yankees, and there was no congratulations from James to a team that he once claimed to be his own.