SENIOR WRITER:  JASON WHITNEY

Over the last few days, ESPN has taken a lot of heat (pardon the pun) when it released its top 500 NBA players as of 2011. Apparently putting LeBron James at number one was sacrilegious. You know because the experts over at ESPN have no clue what they are talking about.

Skip Bayless, or maybe we should just call him Skip Say-less and Stephen A. Smith both revealed on “First and Ten” that LeBron James wouldn’t even be in their top five. Bill Reiter, from Fox Sports, was even more critical with his assessment of LeBron

Are you effin’ kidding me!

Let me preface by telling everyone this, you are at a playground watching the NBA’s top 15-20 players and you have no prior recollection of any players previous experience. Hell, you don’t know anything about them outside of the number on their back. Your life is depending on it. You’re picking a team that has to win you a game. I guarantee you are choosing LeBron James with your first pick.

We like to carry out our own  psychoanalysis on LeBron James. We wonder why he stinks up 4th quarters of big games. We like to engage in the mockery of his precipice decline he has slowly made over the last few years. Forgetting the fact that he took an awful Cleveland Cavaliers team to the Finals. Quick! Name the second best player on that Finals team? Big Z? ‘Nuff said.

Did we already forget LeBron leading his team to game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the rugged and tough champion Detroit Pistons in just his third year? Please Google that team.

Did we forget LeBron scoring his team’s last 25 points of the game against the Pistons in the pivotal game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals the year they went to the NBA Finals?

Meet your supporting cast LeBron! 5'10 shooting guards!

Year in and year out, ‘Bron routinely had the Cavs atop the standings and even had the league’s best record. The Cavs had two 60 win seasons and two more 50+ win seasons to boot! With a team that couldn’t win many D-League games much less NBA games. Mo Williams. Really? That’s who were going to team him up with? James never had any real help. Take LeBron off that joke of a roster we called an NBA team, and the Cavs win 19 games. Who else in the league could you put on that roster that would make that big of a difference?

Dwyane Wade’s teams were arguably better than the Cavs supporting cast and Wade barely led his team to the playoffs, often times being the 6th seed or worse and getting bounced faster than an underage dude at a bar.

We love to question his heart. Yeah, I can’t defend him on his lackadaisical fourth quarters he has had in big games nor would I try. Has he been abysmal? Of course. Has Kobe as well? Let’s not forget Bryant’s 6 for 24 shooting night in last year’s Finals game 7.

I’m baffled by the statement that the NBA championship was his to have. Mark my words, this will be bulletin board material for the Dallas Mavericks next season. The Mavericks swept the aforementioned Los Angeles Lakers and we turned our noses up to that. The Mavericks also beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in 5 games. The sexy pick for the NBA’s top player, Kevin Durant, won a grand total of one game versus the Mavs and the Thunder choked, yet nothing was made of that.

The Heat took the Dallas Mavericks to game 6 of the NBA Finals, where many experts thought the Heat wouldn’t even get there, and it’s called a colossal failure and Lebron’s choke artistry continues.

I love how everyone agrees to the point that LeBron is the most talented player in the NBA yet not even in the top 5. We point to hardware. This was his first year with a legit teammate and he went to game 6 of the NBA Finals!

‘Bron has the accolades, he’s a 2-time NBA MVP. The ESPN list was not, “who’s the best players with a championship.” Everyone’s argument is “no hardware and he chokes.” Apparently 2 NBA Finals appearances and taking a bad team to 60 win seasons gets ignored. Even a Triple-Double in an NBA Finals game gets ignored.

Lets be honest, "The Decision" is the real reason we hate LeBron

Can we just say we hate LeBron for leaving Cleveland the way he did and that’s the reason for our unfair judgement?

You know, nothing like jumping ship with another player to position yourself to win multiple championships. It’s not like Boston and the Lakers didn’t just do that the last couple years. Not like the 80’s Lakers and Celtics teams weren’t constructed of legends and Hall of Fame players.

Let me remind everyone that LeBron is not Michael Jordan, who by the way didn’t win his first championship until the age of 27. Let’s stop comparing LeBron to the former greats, and realize he, in his own right is truly a unique and gifted player.

We root against LeBron like we root against the Yankees, Lakers, Cowboys and Notre Dame. We root against him and chastise him because we hate what he did. We wanted him to rot away in Cleveland. We ignore facts. We ignore we are watching a once in a lifetime player.