LeBron James isn’t a big fan of on-court cameramen and how close they get to the players, Deadspin reports.
He made the comments to Northeast Ohio’s media group’s, Chris Haynes.
LeBron said that he will have a couple of very important points that he will make during the NBPA union meetings in July.
There are good reasons for King James’ complaints. In game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, he stepped on a photographer and sprained his ankle. Most recently. In game 4 of the NBA Finals on Tuesday, he cracked his head open after tripping over a court photographer. Despite his injury, James returned to the game. LeBron also accidentally flashed his penis during an off-court team huddle, all of which was caught on camera. The clip went viral and ABC could face a fine for broadcasting that footage.
The NBA has tried to prevent cameras from getting too close and endangering the players in the past, but it seems that new measures need to be introduced.
“While I appreciate and enjoy up-close action shots of game play, do they really need to be that close to the action?” asked NBPA executive director Michele Roberts. “I am no techno geek, but haven’t we evolved such that we can capture that action without being within inches of the game? Frankly for both the safety of the players and the camera men and women, we need to find a better solution.”
Sean Highkin, writing for NBC Sports’ Pro Basketball Talk agrees with both Roberts and James.
“Camera technology is good enough in 2015 that moving the cameras a few feet back won’t really sacrifice that much in terms of quality of in-game action shots,” he writes.
“What little change there would be is a small price to pay for a change that would be huge for everyone’s safety. These falls haven’t caused many serious injuries yet, but it’s inevitable that it happens at some point. The league needs to do something now before it gets to that point.”
Dealing with on-court cameramen is just one more thing that James has to add to his “unfathomable workload.”
Last week a group of top sports scientists gathered in Northern England to watch and analyze the NBA finals. Their conclusion: LeBron James has a huge workload and is dealing with a remarkable amount of stress.
“It’s unfathomable to go across the country from Cleveland to San Francisco — at the very least a five-hour flight — and then play 50 minutes in a game the next day,” said Michael Young, an expert from the Athletic Lab. “You don’t see that in any other sport. The travel stress alone can be debilitating.”
“And then you add to the fact that basically it’s a one-man team at this point, and the mental and physical burden — it’s just overwhelming,” Young says.
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