{"id":937972,"date":"2026-10-23T09:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T09:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/937972\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T09:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T09:50:11","slug":"slow-news-day-at-the-office-lebron-james-shrugs-off-trumps-national-anthem-attack-lebron-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/937972\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Slow news day at the office\u2019: LeBron James shrugs off Trump\u2019s national anthem attack | LeBron James"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump lashed out at NBA superstar LeBron James on Thursday for what he called disrespectful behavior during the playing of the national anthem.<\/p>\n

Trump posted a video of the basketball legend making apparent warm-up movements while lined up with his Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> teammates before their season opener against the New York Knicks on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile listening to our National Anthem, LeBron James<\/a> disrespects our Country! I said right from the beginning that he\u2019s no good, a TOTAL DISGRACE,\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeBron James should apologize to all of those Great American Warriors and Heroes who died for the American Flag, and all that our Country stands for!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The video used by Trump had an on-screen caption that read: \u201cLeBron working on his golf swing pregame.\u201d It showed him making lateral swinging motions and basketball shooting movements.<\/p>\n

Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Iowa<\/a> on Thursday night, renewed the attack, calling James\u2019s actions \u201ca big scandal kind of a story\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump and James have traded barbs before, and the NBA\u2019s all-time leading scorer shrugged off the president\u2019s latest criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must be a slow news day at the office,\u201d he said after the Sixers completed an epic comeback to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 114-106 in Philadelphia. \u201cSlow news day at the office.\u201d<\/p>\n

James, 41, is entering a record-extending 24th NBA season with his fourth team.<\/p>\n

Sixers coach Nick Nurse said Trump\u2019s comments were the kind of distractions he was schooling his team to tune out.<\/p>\n

LeBron James drives past Cleveland center Jarrett Allen during the third quarter of Philadelphia\u2019s 114-106 comeback victory on Thursday night. Photograph: Emilee Chinn\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that goes right in with other outside noise we\u2019ve already had,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cI keep saying the same thing. All I really care about is getting to the practice floor, getting them in the film room, getting them to the game floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus that they\u2019ve had and the intent and all the stuff like that has been outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philadelphia\u2019s win on Thursday marked both the largest comeback by the Sixers in the play-by-play era (since 1996-97) and the largest comeback win of James\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

James finished with 17 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and three steals, while Tyrese Maxey powered the rally with 32 points and a crucial defensive effort on James Harden. Jaylen Brown, also making his home debut in a 76ers uniform, scored 17 of his 21 points in the second half and 10 in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Trump has been critical of athletes before \u2013 particularly Black athletes \u2013 for their behavior during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner before games.<\/p>\n

During his first term, Trump singled out NFL star Colin Kaepernick<\/a> for his decision to kneel during the Star-Spangled Banner to protest against racial injustice and police brutality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump lashed out at NBA superstar LeBron James on Thursday for what he called disrespectful behavior during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":937973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-937972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/937973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}