Former NFL star Marcellus Wiley slammed NBA star LeBron James for his social media posts responding to the police shooting death of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant.
“Dog, you can’t do this,” Wiley said during his show Speak For Yourself on Fox Sports 1. “You can’t be that irresponsible if you’re LeBron James because you have that much power, and we all know when you get that type of power that responsibility comes with it.”
Damn, this is good. Well said @marcelluswiley: pic.twitter.com/w4nnhudczW
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 23, 2021
On Wednesday, the 36-year-old basketball player tweeted and deleted a photo of a police officer involved in the Bryant shooting, with the caption “YOUR’E NEXT #accountability.”
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Bryant was shot and killed by police Tuesday afternoon in Columbus, Ohio, while holding a knife and attempting to stab another person. Multiple videos of the incident have surfaced from different angles, and the city’s interim police chief said, “We know, based on this footage, the officer took action to protect another young girl in our community.”
James deleted the post after receiving harsh criticism for suggesting the police officer was wrong to protect the victim of the stabbing attack. The Los Angeles Lakers forward then tweeted a clarification, which Wiley took issue with as well.
“Emotions can’t trump logic, and that’s what’s happening,” Wiley said. “Your agenda can’t go before your acumen. You can’t pander before your principles, right now, even if you get all the likes and all the retweets.”
“I’m so damn tired of seeing black people killed by police,” Wiley added. “How about this sentence instead of that, ‘I’m so damn tired of seeing black people killed?’ How about this sentence, even more idealistic. ‘I’m so damn tired of just seeing people killed?’”
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Wiley wondered aloud why James hasn’t been more vocal about black people who are killed by other black people.
“Two-hundred and fifty black people are killed by police every year, that’s 252 million people,” Wiley said. “But in the macro sense, there are 7,500 homicides to black people every year, as well. I’m not saying Lebron you got that put the focus on that fully, but let’s be responsible … there’s 7,500 in totality that never get the discussion because the people with the platform are not highlighting that.”
Wiley, who played in the NFL for 10 seasons, pointed out that the police officer in Columbus had an “impossible choice” in front of him as to whether he would save a life or take a life.
Wiley then criticized James for saying that we “live in two different Americas.”
“I don’t believe that America is divided, I just think we different, and right now, it’s getting highlighted more so than ever, so it’s getting exaggerated … he says, ‘Oh, man, the system,’” Wiley said. “The same system that is so broken, it allows you to become a billionaire and never get arrested in it, but the system is broken?”
Wiley made a point to call James possibly the greatest basketball player who ever lived and said that the good he does outweighs the bad.
James was widely criticized for his tweets, including stern pushback from sports journalist Jason Whitlock and former President Donald Trump.
