ZLATAN vs LEBRON - Should Politics Be In Sport?

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well zach and gave an interview to espn

the other day where he basically they

said what do you think of lebron james

and it felt a bit weird because the

question sort of came out that blew a

little bit why were they asking him

why why are they asking exactly he came

from l.a didn't he so

yeah so obviously he as zlatan played in

la

um i don't know if he was there at the

same time as lebron because maybe they

didn't cross over but they both now

lebron plays for lakers zlatan played

for galaxy so now he got what they got

what do you think of lebron james which

is like a bit of an out the blue

question i almost felt like he gone

asked me about lebron james during the

interview and we'll see what happens and

he basically said

yeah i like him he's a great player he's

achieved a lot but he should stay out of

politics

people you know you should never uh you

should never cross politicians

what you know are kind of vibe was the

exact same he kind of said something

like i hate

when people get celebrity status then

start it was something along the

and started talking which i felt it's

what he was insinuating but

you almost exactly verbatim um quoted

him in saying

stick to what you're good at and it's

sort of put a bit of a cat amongst the

pigeons online because lebron james then

decided to well he was asked about it

and replied

all right so how was his reply his reply

was a bit more uh

wordy he was good but first of all he

basically said uh

in no uncertain terms i kind of kept the

receipts on you like i know what you're

about and he said i've done my research

on you he was like i know you've gone

back to sweden and spoken about how

because you were an immigrant in sweden

you've been discriminated against yeah

because of his last name

he's from he's from baltimore muslim

family and i've read his

this is what let me down as well like i

love zlatan

like still sing his song when we're at

games and that like

he's a top guy and seeing that come from

him

someone that comes from a minority

background someone that when you read

his story and you learn about his story

you see that if

he faced challenges and then to see him

almost say well actually you shouldn't

speak up for your people to someone else

from another minority group that is

massively

missing what are you do like i can't get

my head around that like you

two should have more in common or more

to talk about and maybe

more to help each other with how can i

bring what you're doing to my place or

what i i don't know whatever

you're saying but like to then just [ __ ]

on what he's doing now i don't know

whether he's not done his research on

lebron james and he's generally talking

about

just celebrities who cling on to

anything

he does his research he does his [ __ ]

properly he the way his schools are

built the way he

like i know more about lebron after

pitching on the on the court sorry

um like just a one person to go and

you're zlatan like brav you're from a

bosnian croat

muslim family who have had who left

because of

uh yeah and you had you had issues

growing up in sweden with that as well

and you still can't see how hypocritical

you're

that's what i find strange about this

whole situation so lebron james then

replies and says well you can't really

come at me i think zlatan was talking

about

and insinuating that lebron james had

dealt badly with

a comment he made about hong kong when

the the nba had gone to china

and uh one of the gm's from the team had

said

i don't think that what's happening is

democratic in hong kong and the chinese

government

kicked off and we're like we're going to

cancel the nba in china

the people who are here they've shot

hundreds they're normally so reasonable

yeah so that was part of it and they

kicked off and lebron basically

was one of the guys that was kind of

trotted out by the nba to sort of save

the people

in china because there was a threat that

some of those people might go to prison

that these people could be tried for

certain things and he basically said

that daryl mori the guy who said the

quote

was ill-informed a lot of people are so

he was backing

lebron backed china so the brundt i

don't necessarily think he

backed china but i think what he did do

is try and trot back some of those

comments

as a pr piece um well i can see the

zlatan thing then if it's

well yeah so

just how i understand this correct me if

i'm wrong

that one uh potential mistake that he

may have made

he's saying the entire entirety of all

of his political work

he shouldn't be doing that he didn't

specifically say that thing

yeah and if he was talking about that

thing he shouldn't have made a broad

statement because

lebron does do a lot of other good

things in politics

and he is outspoken for the right the

way that i understand china

and i i've kind of i'm interested in

what is going on in china but

china china as a country is an

incredible example of

a population that has struggled to come

to a

an agreeable ideology that works for

everyone and for a very long time

they've been under a totalitarian state

which basically doesn't allow anyone to

express their opinions in a

healthy democratic way you can contrast

that with the west whether you think the

west is democratic or not

and the hypocrisy of democracy in the

west is absolutely fine but the point is

for lebron james or any sports r to

speak out

when donald trump uh joe biden

barack obama the three previous

presidents of the united states

have barely managed to even mount any

kind of political discourse around what

happens in china

to expect lebron james to be the person

who's going to lead that charge

and also they just don't say nothing

then but i understand that but

to then expect lebron james not to say

anything and when he's the face of the

nba then asked in a press conference

which by the way

he went out for he said i will go out

for i will answer questions

for no one in the nba to then back him

or some people did a lot of people did

he had to help save those people that

were in china at that time

so it's not the time when you're having

an open dispute with uh within with a

a country that's known to do

undemocratic things

and debate people in a very unfair way

to then go

now's the time to challenge it now's the

time to cause an incident

and i think lebron james is being

wrongly targeted by people for not being

a face of this

and strangely i think zlatan's the

hypocrite here i understand that lebron

james is being hypocritical

in what he's saying and not doing

anything political but ozil when he

spoke out about

that about the what was happening to the

uyghurs in china did anything change

it's all well and good us saying empty

words let me just finish this it's all

well and good us having empty statements

and improving our brand and going yeah

absolutely i completely disagree with

happening in china i'd love to see what

your practical discourse around that is

that then

because ozil said a lot of stuff i

didn't see [ __ ] changing in china i

still

see people dying i still see the chinese

government doing whatever the hell they

want and i didn't see

one figure apart from his own prime

minister in turkey

back him the same can be said and about

all these black lives matter stuff

what's changed

but there's still social injustice but

there's still there's still there's

still

uh the point is black people are still

being held down in certain countries

still

absolutely not interested absolutely but

the point is with black lives matter

that they're trying

to address that with it within what we

believe is an open political discourse

where at least people

are saying we have a chance to change

this together to say to someone in a

totalitarian state

where there's very there's been very

little change for the past 100 years

probably

not even since mao is it right also we

know that money talks and we know that

these

these countries are in in big deals and

that's why money has to overcome

and and lebron james has gone for the

checklist whether you like it or not

he's gone for the check you can say he's

saving people or not

i think but i think for the check i

think and you can say did mesut ozil

what he did change anything he didn't

and no it didn't no

but he wasn't he wasn't even able to

stick to his guns on that his club

overruled him everyone

around him went over them

that was a long time away he wasn't just

doing black lives matter he was

protesting

without that phrasing obviously in it

but it took that was what planted the

seeds but everything else that followed

absolutely

why not stand up and be the man that

plants the seed and i'm not saying

black lives matter shouldn't be

happening i'm saying it should be

happening but at the same time we can't

stand by and say

black lives matter when when muslim

lives matter

don't matter in china or in palestine or

anywhere else but in saying that black

lives matter

in saying i care about my own community

you're not saying i care less about

somewhere else

you're acknowledging that as a human

being of a finite amount of energy time

and resources to be able to deal with

political matters

and so you can't just say if you care

about this then you must also care about

this but then you know

the fact and the fact no one's

undermining anything but what i'm trying

to say is

china is not a state that's going to

just openly deal with lebron james he's

going to be a guy that will get censored

on tv

so lebron james voice which might be

important in empowering people

and getting a message to people in china

that the west or whatever

devoid of a western exceptionalism is

able to have a political discourse

which matters and show people in china

hey

this can work maybe if we had more

lebrons and zlatan maybe uniting on

these things rather than

coming against each of these things and

i know it's not sportsman's

issues to be dealing with i know it's

not but i just feel

if you're going to stand up for one

thing maybe don't say something that

goes against the other thing can i just

can i just finish a point

the point with that is then i think that

zlatan has come out on the side of what

is actually quite a vicious

um and it's not about the right and the

left wing in the states but there is a

very

fundamentalist approach to politics in

the states right now where they will use

any idea of hypocrisy on anyone's side

to basically say well why'd you do

anything

then and the argument that zlatan made

sounds very much like someone who's gone

down a q a

hole which is basically like oh well if

you don't care about the muslims why'd

you care about black people then i've

made good points

and i'll definitely appreciate both

sides of the argument but i also don't i

don't want this to get

out of hand oh no it's not going to get

out not between used to but with the way

people might

misinterpret what some of the points

that he's bringing so i think it's going

to bring this to a

close here the conclusion then we've got

the game yeah the conclusion then for me

is that i think you're right adam uh

zlatan just shouldn't be taking shots at

someone like lebron if anything

this should be something where it is

yeah exactly this is a massively

respectful

uh both guys seem to have a lot of

respect within their industry

you definitely target iran personally

yeah but what he has done is strangely

put a lot of light onto the political

things that he's done

where he had uh 50 names of uh people

who died

in a country where the u.n was uh

tattooed over his body people who

starved all those kind of things

the zlatan's a lot of very good

political things strangely

the media and us even now are focusing

on the negatives that these two guys

have done

actually zlatan has done a lot of very

good i will never

focus on the negatives of what lebron

james does i i

and i i will always i'm a big fan of

what lebron lebron james says this isn't

me saying that i'm not

but i'm just trying to you know get my

point that like it frustrates me a lot

as well like i'll see

friends of mine that will tweet uh why

do why

why is everyone tweeting about black

lives matter but not this and i think to

myself

bro we can all tweet about everything or

we can all talk about everything you

don't have to be one or the other

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