LeBron James Not Fined When he Made 'No Homo' Comment! Double Standard in the NBA?

Roy Hibbert has been handed a $75K fine for his comments during the post-game press conference Saturday night following Game 6. The world expected it to happen the second the curse word and gay slur slipped out, and sure enough it happened.

What the world probably did not expect was for some enterprising individual to discover a video clip on YouTube of LeBron James making the same comment--and not getting fined.

I first saw this clip on BlackSportsOnline (who had a great post with the clip). To be fair, it is hard to tell when the comment was made. The video itself was posted to YouTube three years ago, but there is another clip of just the Spike Lee interview that was posted back in 2007.

So I don't know when LeBron made his comment, but here it is anyway:



This clip is bound to find its way into main stream media and when it does I am sure there will be a nice little storm over the double standard that the NBA appears to apply fining someone now and not fining someone then.

The obvious argument someone is bound to make is that we live in a more sensitive world now. More things have been deemed to be unacceptable that years ago no one thought twice about saying. Does it make it right to say a slur of any kind just because society does not care at the time?

But the reality of it is that the world was what it was then, and it is what it is now.

There is a lesson to be learned here sports fans. If you ever make it big--like by becoming a professional athlete or something--be careful with whatever you say. It doesn't matter if it is in jest or not. It will come out at some point down the line.

And when it does it will probably not be good for you.