A Look Back At Every Time LeBron James Called Someone ‘U Bum’ On Twitter In Honor Of Trump’s Departure

LeBron James is a professional basketball player, philanthropist, businessman, and occasional actor. He is also a poster, using Instagram and Twitter in particular to promote stuff he’s got going on (whether that be on or off the basketball court) and generally muse about the state of things — he’s particularly active on Twitter while he’s watching sporting events involving teams he likes, namely the Cleveland Browns and the Ohio State Buckeyes.

James will occasionally post about current events, like the time he (accurately, to be clear) called out Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred for the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal with a pair of sensational tweets that included the phrase “listen here baseball commissioner” and the hashtag #JustMyThoughtsComingFromASportsJunkieRegardlessMyOwnSportIPlay. But perhaps his most popular tweet came when he defended Steph Curry after the Golden State Warriors star sparred with Donald Trump, who as of this writing is not the president anymore.

The story: The Warriors beat LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017 NBA Finals, and the team had a decision to make. They could stick with tradition and head to the White House to meet with the President of the United States — shake hands, pat backs, Trump would say something about how “John Starks, now that’s someone, he was never very nice to me, but we’ll see,” all that stuff — or they could not do that because, well, you don’t become the least-popular president Gallup’s ever tracked on accident.

The Warriors decided to not go, Curry made it public, and then after that happened, Trump said that the team wasn’t invited, anyway. That led to James crafting one of his masterpieces:

“U bum” is a terrific way to refer to anyone, let alone someone like Trump. “Bum” is a terrific insult in its own right and referring to anyone as “U” is quietly great, because the level of contempt to express that someone does not deserve enough of your time to type out “you” is funny, to me. Anyway, as it turns out, “U Bum” is not a distinction LeBron saves for people he really hates, as evidenced by a quick Twitter search. For example, did you know he once referred to Dwyane Wade this way?

Now, it is not immediately clear what either of them was referring to because this was back when quote tweets were a thing. Looking in the replies and at a calendar, though, it does appear that Wade was talking smack to LeBron over a Monday Night Football game between Wade’s Chicago Bears and LeBron’s once-favorite NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys. The Bears came out on top, 34-18, behind a big game from Brandon Marshall (seven catches for 138 yards and a touchdown) and five interceptions thrown by future CBS announcer Tony Romo.

This was not the only time “u bum” popped up in relation to football. Back in 2011, Patrick Beverley, then of Russian side Spartak St. Petersburg, asked the following:

You might be wondering why he did not Google this, which was in regards to the Sugar Bowl between Beverley’s beloved Arkansas Razorbacks and the Ohio State Buckeyes, but within minutes, LeBron was in his mentions to do a very Ohio State football fan thing: Tell someone that Ohio State won a football game.

The Buckeyes came out on top, 31-26, as Terrelle Pryor out-dueled Ryan Mallett in a battle of guys who were very good college quarterbacks.

There was only one more “u bum” in LeBron’s entire posting catalogue, and it was easily the most mysterious of the bunch. His childhood friend Frankie Walker wanted him to “send the pic.” LeBron said that no pictures have been taken. It is unclear what any of this is in reference to.

https://twitter.com/fwalker03/status/239565925702049793

A subsequent search of LeBron’s Twitter account does not clarify what they were talking about, but we do know that a few days later, the pair played Madden and LeBron tweeted the results of games that he largely won.

There are two lessons to be taken from this post. One is that you should not play LeBron James in Madden, apparently. The other, far more important one is that future presidents should make it a point to not earn the “U bum” distinction from the Los Angeles Lakers star, because nothing good comes from that.