Do we like LeBron James?
Our score: 8 out of 10. He has backed kids and families in Akron for years and has no harmful words on record, with one contested non-answer on Gaza and a car-crash suit he denies.
LeBron's story starts in Akron, Ohio, and it isn't the glossy version. He lived across town from his school and missed as many as 83 days in fourth grade, and families around him stepped in to help. He went on to St. Vincent-St. Mary, then won a title with his hometown Cavs in 2016.
The fresh stoush is a silly one. The AP reports James kept up his warm-up, with a golf swing and a jump shot, while the anthem played before the Sixers' opener at Madison Square Garden. Trump posted that he should apologise to service members and veterans, then repeated it at a rally in Iowa. James said it must be a slow news day at the office, then helped the Sixers rally from 29 down against Cleveland.
The messier moment came in February. Asked at All-Star weekend about Israeli player Deni Avdija, he said he'd heard "nothing but great things" about Israel. Writer Dave Zirin argued in The Nation that this was a deliberate show of support during the Gaza war and clashed with the activist example of Muhammad Ali. Others saw a polite answer to a basketball question. Where you land depends on which of those you hear.
On the harm test, we found nothing nasty. He endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024 and criticised Trump's divisive comments on race in a video, per Time. A search for his record on LGBTQ+ issues turned up nothing reliable from him either way, and we found nothing on the climate. That's honestly a gap, not a tick. Nothing in what we read shows him platforming anyone who pushes harm.
There's one legal cloud. Two plaintiffs sued in October 2024, alleging James crashed into their vehicle in Littlerock, California, in November 2022. His lawyers filed a response in February 2025 denying every allegation and raising 14 defences. Sports Illustrated reported that local police and the CHP had no reports of the alleged crash, and it was still ongoing in the latest coverage we found.
The real stuff is the school. The I Promise School in Akron opened in 2018 with 240 third and fourth graders, free breakfast, lunch and a snack, and a longer school year. In 2019 his foundation announced transitional housing for about 20 families nearby, and reported that 90 per cent of the first class met or beat reading and maths benchmarks. He said of the kids, "I know exactly what a lot of these kids are going through."