LeBron James is Going to be the Sports Anti-Hero that Tiger Woods Could Have Been

Back in June, when Tiger’s golf slump was only at DEFCON 3, we wondered if perhaps he should just say F-it and go the anti-hero route. Stop trying to say the right things or be somebody you’re not. Live it up in Vegas. Frolic with porn stars and cocktail waitresses (after the divorce, obviously). Swear like a sailor on the golf course. It was probably a reach to think Tiger could pull that off. But we’ve found the new anti-hero in sports: LeBron.

LeBron’s tweet last night did it for us. We started to fall in love with him all over again! We’d guess 99 percent of the population takes “mental notes” of the haters and uses it to drive them. (We certainly do.) Few athletes have been beaten up in the media and by the public like LeBron has this summer (some of it has definitely been deserved), and we can’t recall an athlete in sports getting hammered this bad for something that didn’t include some type of arrest/police involvement. But to think the best basketball player on the planet is laying back in the cut, like Danny McGrath, with a list of swore enemies? Too cool.

Tweeting about his “list” solidified it – LeBron knows you hate him, and doesn’t care. Tiger’s problem? It seems like he’s still under the illusion that he can somehow salvage his life – his marriage, his fans, his sponsors (when’s NIKE going to dump him, anyway?) – and be the guy he once was. No shot, Eldrick. LeBron probably knew there was going to be a backlash for the way he left Cleveland, but he probably also had no idea it’d be a tsunami of this nature. With that tweet, he just flashed a middle finger to everyone. Nice.

We’re not remotely worthy of making the list, but we’d be thrilled to be part of it – as long as we were nowhere near Delonte West. That payback’s going to be gnarly, like end-of-Se7en disgusting. And we leave you with LeBron’s theme song this winter: Hi Hater.

[Gif via @Jose3030]