Most fans can stand still for ninety seconds while the band plays.
LeBron James apparently found that too much to ask in his brand-new uniform.
And President Trump saw the video and fired off a verdict LeBron won’t enjoy reading.
LeBron James Brought His Golf Game to a Basketball Court
LeBron James pulled on a Philadelphia 76ers jersey for the first time when the team opened its season against the New York Knicks.
Both teams lined up on the court for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Most of the men out there stood still. James did not.
A fan in the stands pulled out a phone and caught James rehearsing a golf swing, over and over, while the anthem played. After a few seconds, he switched the motion to a jump shot. Somehow that was supposed to look better.
It didn’t take long for the clip to bounce all over social media. And once President Trump caught wind of it, he headed straight to Truth Social.
“While listening to our National Anthem, LeBron James disrespects our Country!” the President wrote. “I said right from the beginning that he’s no good, a TOTAL DISGRACE. LeBron James should apologize to all of those Great American Warriors and Heroes who died for the American Flag, and all that our Country stands for!”
Trump didn’t stand alone on this one.
OutKick founder Clay Travis branded James “toxic” and said he “can’t wait until he retires.”
Political commentator Jon Root wrote that athletes “need to stop disrespecting the National Anthem.”
“It’s not hard to stand for 1 min. in honor & respect for our nation & it’s servicemen and women,” Root added. “They all come across as a bunch of entitled, spoiled, rich brats.”
And Fox News host Laura Ingraham, the same woman who once told James to “shut up and dribble” after he sounded off on politics, sarcastically called him “class all the way.”
LeBron James Already Ran This Exact Play Once Before
Here’s the part that makes the “harmless habit” excuse tough to swallow.
This wasn’t the first time. TV cameras caught James, then still a Los Angeles Laker, appearing to practice the very same golf swing during the anthem before the Christmas Day 2025 game against the Houston Rockets.
Viewers blew up social media over that one too. James never publicly addressed it. No apology, no explanation, nothing.
Golf has become his new pastime as his playing days wind down. He even admitted in a 2025 interview that he’s caught “the bug.”
Nobody begrudges a man his weekend tee time. Plenty of retired fellas live for Saturday mornings on the back nine.
But the anthem runs about ninety seconds. The driving range stays open pretty much the rest of the day.
Maybe James zoned out. Maybe a player in his 40s just gets fidgety standing around. That seems unlikley given James’ past antics.
But a man who has stood under that flag before well over a thousand NBA games knows exactly what the moment means to the people watching at home. Doing it once is a slip. Doing it twice, in front of cameras, after the first round of backlash, starts to look like a man telling the country what he thinks of the whole ritual.
Why America’s Veterans Aren’t Laughing at One Lazy Golf Swing
The national anthem isn’t elevator music. It isn’t background noise to fill the dead air before tipoff.
It’s the one moment in a packed arena when everybody, rich or poor, Sixers fan or Knicks fan, stops what they’re doing and honors the same flag.
That flag covered the coffins of Americans who came home from Normandy, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Grandfathers in that arena may have buried buddies under it. Turning that moment into a practice range insults every one of those men and women.
And treating the anthem like warm-up time is un-American, plain and simple. Kneeling, sitting, turning your back, or swinging an imaginary 7-iron all send the same message to the people who wore the uniform: this doesn’t matter much to me.
James is no stranger to this fight. Back in 2017, when the anthem-kneeling craze swept through the NFL and Trump criticized it, James took to Twitter and called the President a bum. He has lectured the country on politics for most of his career while cashing paychecks the country made possible.
But the America that made LeBron James fabulously rich is the same America that anthem honors. Those two things don’t come separately.
There’s also a reason the Ingraham line from years ago still stings. Plenty of fans just want to watch basketball. They don’t want sermons from millionaires, and they sure don’t want to see the biggest star in the building treating the flag like an afterthought.
The NBA has spent years wondering why so many longtime fans tuned out. Moments like this one hand them the answer on a silver platter.
Imagine a 19-year-old rookie pulling this stunt. Coaches would bench him, veterans would chew him out in the locker room, and the league would issue a stern memo by morning. A superstar gets a shrug.
Trump asked James to apologize to the fallen. Don’t hold your breath. James skipped the apology the first time around, and nothing so far suggests he plans to change course now.
But here’s a thought for the new guy in Philadelphia. Ninety seconds of standing still costs nothing. The men buried under that flag paid everything.
That trade seems pretty fair.
Sources: Mediaite, “Trump Shreds ‘TOTAL DISGRACE’ LeBron James for Practicing Golf Swing During National Anthem: ‘He’s No Good!’” (October 22, 2026); Fox News, “LeBron James accused of working on his ‘golf swing’ during national anthem” (December 30, 2025); Us Weekly via AOL, “LeBron James Goes Viral for His Controversial Behavior During National Anthem Performance”; SBS News, “LeBron James refuses to use Trump’s name while blasting US president over anthem feud” (September 2017); Euronews, “LeBron James attacks Trump over ‘divisive tactics’” (September 26, 2017)
