CLEVELAND — Celtics fans can hate on LeBron James all they want, and sure, why not? For all kinds of reasons — some of them real, some of them imagined — LeBron is a certified Boston sports villain.
True, the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar is not in that special top-shelf category of Boston Bad Guys with, say, Ulf Samuelsson, whose dirty play shortened Cam Neely’s career. Or Jack Hamilton, whose spitter (that’s what late Angels shortstop Jim Fregosi called it) shortened Tony Conigliaro’s career. LeBron, after all, never really has done anything wrong.
I put him in the same class as retired big league slugger Reggie Jackson: a really great player, a real prima donna and, hence, the kind of opposing player you simply love to hate.