LeBron James on Kaepernick: ‘It Just Feels Like He’s Been Blackballed Out of the NFL’

Normally, when basketball season happens NBA players talk about basketball. However, the times in which we live could be called anything but normal, which is how we end up with LeBron James talking about Colin Kaepernick during basketball season.

After the Cavaliers practice on Sunday, LeBron James was asked about his thoughts regarding the continued unemployment of former anthem protester Colin Kaepernick.

James said:

I love football, but I’m not part of the NFL. I don’t represent the NFL. I don’t know their rules and regulations. But I do know Kap is getting a wrong doing. I do know that. Just watching, he’s an NFL player. He’s an NFL player and you see all these other quarterbacks out there and players out there that get all these second and third chances that are nowhere near as talented as him. It just feels like he’s been blackballed out of the NFL. So, I definitely do not respect that.

Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers in March of this year. Prior to that, Kaepernick lost his job to Blaine Gabbert before eventually regaining the starting role for the San Francisco. Since opting out of his deal, Kaepernick has remained unsigned. Believing that his continued unemployment has more to do with the politics surrounding his anthem protest and less to do with the quality of his play, Kaepernick has filed a grievance against the league, alleging collusion.

James continued, “The only reason I could say he’s not on a team is because the way he took a knee. That’s the only reason. I watch football every Sunday, every Thursday, every Monday night. I see all these quarterbacks — first-string, second-team, third-team quarterbacks — that play sometimes when the starter gets hurt or are starters that play. Kap is better than a lot of those guys. Let’s just be honest.”

Because saying he’s a good quarterback and he should have a job is never quite enough, James then went on to compare Kaepernick to Martin Luther King:

I’ve commended Kap, and for him to sacrifice everything for the greater good for everyone, for what he truly believed in, the utmost respect to him. Obviously he had a vision like Martin Luther King and like some of our all-time greats that people couldn’t see further than what they were doing at the point and time. And Muhammad Ali and things of that nature. When it’s something that’s new and it’s something that people are not educated about or don’t understand what your beliefs are all about, people are so quick to judge, and people are so quick to say that what you’re doing is wrong. For him to sacrifice the sport that he plays and to sacrifice the things he’s done his whole life because he knew what he believed in, I salute him. I salute and respect that.

It’s rather remarkable that James believes the radical leftist politics that Kaepernick represents is something “new,” that people are “uneducated” about. Why can’t people reject Kaepernick because he’s offering nothing new, and people are fully educated about it?

Whether the NFL colluded to keep Kaepernick out of the league remains to be seen. Kaepernick’s attorneys are still in the process of collecting all the information they believe relevant to proving that case. Though, it is interesting how little consideration is being given to the idea that 32 billionaires and their underlings saw what any person of reasonable intelligence has the ability to see. Which is that while Colin Kaepernick is a good enough player to have a job in the league, he’s nowhere near good enough to offset all the drama and baggage that he brings with him.

James’ comment that, “He’s and NFL player,” simply won’t do. No one in their right mind would willingly subject themselves to slave master tweets like the one Kaepernick’s girlfriend lobbed at Ravens Owner Steve Bisciotti, for a guy who is just an NFL player.

No, the reality is that Colin Kaepernick would have to be functioning at or about Tom Brady levels in order to justify the cacophony of crazy that he brings with him. And the fact of the matter is, as well as he’s played at certain points in his career, Colin Kaepernick has never even sniffed that type of elite play.

Kaepernick doesn’t justify his drama, no one needs to collude to figure that out.