{"id":25269,"date":"2025-04-06T15:48:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T15:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=25269"},"modified":"2025-04-06T15:48:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T15:48:01","slug":"donald-trump-forced-lebron-james-to-break-unwritten-rule-for-the-first-time-in-his-entire-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=25269","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump forced LeBron James to break unwritten rule for the first time in his entire career"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LeBron James and a number of his Cleveland Cavaliers teammates made a so-called “modest political protest” against then-president-elect Donald Trump ahead of their game against the New York Knicks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in December 2016, the Cavaliers recorded an emphatic 126-94 victory over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.\u00a0James<\/a>\u00a0scored an impressive 25 points, while Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love also surpassed the 20-mark.<\/p>\n

It was a superb performance from the Cavs, who ended a four-game winning streak for the Knicks thanks, in part, to the brilliance of their power forward.<\/p>\n

But rather than the result itself, one of the big talking points was James’ pre-match actions. For the first time in his career, LeBron decided against staying at his team\u2019s designated hotel, which happened to be the Trump SoHo hotel.<\/p>\n

In fact, a number of James’ teammates joined him at a different Manhattan hotel, with a report from the\u00a0New York Times<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0describing it as a “modest political protest”.<\/p>\n

After opting to stay away from the team’s primary hotel, James insisted that it was his \u201cpersonal preference\u201d to find another place to crash the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, I hope he\u2019s one of the best presidents ever for all of our sake \u2014 for my family, for all of us,\u201d James said of\u00a0Trump<\/a>. \u201cBut just my personal preference. It would be the same if I went to a restaurant and decided to eat chicken and not steak.\u201d<\/p>\n

James endorsed Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign in 2016 and made a public appearance with her shortly before the election.<\/p>\n

“We must address the violence, of every kind, the African-American community is experiencing in our streets and seeing on our TVs,” James said at the time.<\/p>\n

“I believe rebuilding our communities by focusing on at-risk children is a significant part of the solution. However, I am not a politician, I don\u2019t know everything it will take finally to end the violence. But I do know we need a president who brings us together and keeps us unified.”<\/p>\n

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\"LeBron\"LeBron<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

LeBron James and Hillary Clinton arrive for a rally at the Cleveland Public Auditorium in November 2016. Image credit: Getty<\/cite><\/div>\n

Almost four years later, in 2020, James said the\u00a0NBA<\/a>\u00a0“couldn’t care less” about losing Trump as a viewer, after the US president said that watching players kneel during the national anthem prompted him to \u201cturn off the game\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t think the basketball community are sad about losing his viewership, him viewing the game,\u201d James said after the\u00a0Lakers<\/a>‘ 105-86 defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder. “And that\u2019s all I got to say.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    LeBron James and a number of his Cleveland Cavaliers teammates made a so-called “modest political protest” against then-president-elect Donald Trump ahead of their game against the New York … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25271,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25269\/revisions\/25271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}