Kevin Sethre, not Greg

After getting blown out by the Dallas Mavericks 128-110 for their third consecutive loss on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Lakers found themselves out of the NBA’s play-in tournament with only seven games left in the season. What has already been a disaster of a season for the Lakers got even worse when it was announced after the game that their superstar forward LeBron James was retiring, effective immediately, after a Twitter user by the name of “cavsfan09481290834” had tweeted that he will never be better than Bulls legend Michael Jordan.

The debate over who is the NBA’s “GOAT” or “Greatest of All Time,” has been raging on for years, and the increasing popularity of social media platforms such as Twitter has only made it more intense. Thousands of Twitter trolls post spam about it under any posts they find, but one was finally able to achieve their goal and force James, who is commonly referred to as “The King”, into an early retirement.

In an interview with ESPN, “cavsfan09481290834” revealed that he has been tweeting at LeBron every day for more than three years in the hope that he would be able to get under his skin.  Since he is only 16 years old, his identity was kept anonymous, but he chose to reveal that he lived in Lakewood, Ohio, which is a suburb of Cleveland and is on his high school’s junior varsity basketball team.

When he was asked about his hatred for James, he said that while he had fond memories of him playing and winning a championship for the Cleveland Cavaliers at the end of the 2015-16 season, he was unhappy when James left the team a second time for Los Angeles during the summer of 2018. As soon as the 2018-19 season began in Oct. of that year, he started his campaign against LeBron and has been active on Twitter ever since. Despite being so active on the platform, he still only has 53 followers. Still, he told ESPN that he is hoping to reach 60 by the end of the year.

The news sent shockwaves around the NBA, with nearly every team and many fellow players posting a tribute to James, who finishes his career having won four MVP awards, four championships, and 18 appearances in the All-Star Game over his 19-season career.

At press time, James had announced that he would be focusing more on spending more time with his family, which includes scheduling a television special for his son, Bronny James, to reveal his college choice in the spring of 2023. Meanwhile, it is believed that “cavsfan09481290834” will be revealing his identity to the world through appearances on various late-night talk shows over the next few weeks.

This article was published as part of The Echo’s 2022 joke issue.