Skip Bayless has some advice for LeBron James: Move on.
James referred to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ decision to trade Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics in the summer of 2017 as the “beginning of the end” in an article published Monday on The Athletic. Irving brushed off the comments, indicating he’s turned the page on his Cavs career, and Bayless believes James should do the same now that he’s with the Los Angeles Lakers.
“Speaking of pathetic, this whole story is just pathetic,” Bayless said Tuesday on FS1’s “Undisputed.” “Yesterday, Kyrie was asked in his shootaround what he thought of this same story. And he just shrugged and said, ‘You know what? I have moved on.’ And LeBron should have said when asked these questions about what happened in the past in Cleveland, ‘I’ve moved on.’ Just let it go, let it be, let it lay.
” … But no, LeBron just can’t help himself. He constantly needs to rewrite history with his sympathetic spin on it. He just has to rewrite it. He has to revise history so everybody says, ‘Aw, poor LeBron.’ ”
To be fair, James, who signed with Los Angeles in free agency over the offseason, simply was answering questions about his time with the Cavaliers before his first trip to Cleveland as a member of the Lakers on Wednesday night. That said, Bayless’ advice isn’t the worst. It probably would benefit James to steer clear of the Cavs subject for a while, even though his play hardly has suffered this season.
The real — and perhaps only — loser of this situation is the Cavaliers. They entered Tuesday with an NBA-worst 2-13 record, and it’s hard not to wonder whether James would have considered staying in Cleveland had the Cavs not traded Irving before last season.
