I’m not sure anyone’s had a more bizarre fall from grace than former NBA player Delonte West. It all started in the 2010 playoffs when rumors began circulating about a love affair between Delonte and LeBron James’ mom, Gloria James. The subsequent loss to the Celtics combined with LeBron’s poor play fueled the rumors even more.
Every sports blogger on the planet received some sort of tip, all with the same basic story. LeBron found out about the “alleged” banging ahead of Game 4 which ultimately led to the team’s lack of chemistry.
Yada, yada, yada.
Delonte’s career was kinda over after that. He had short stints in Boston and Dallas and hasn’t played in the NBA since. He briefly addressed the banging of LeBron’s mamma in 2012.
“If we want to continue to grow as a human race, what are we teaching our kids if we try to make humor and fun out of stuff like that?” West says of the rumor. “Number one, something like that never happened. I don’t know where they got that from.
“For a strong black woman like that, for people to try to tear her down, that’s terrible. That’s terrible in so many ways.”
Vice Sports has a pretty in-depth feature about Delonte West, including a video in which West explains why he didn’t call his son Delonte West, Jr.
“His middle name is Delonte but I didn’t want to name him Delonte West, Jr. just because of that,” he says in the video. “I don’t want my son going to school and people making fun of him for something his daddy did. He goin’ to school and ‘didn’t your daddy have sex with LeBron’s mamma?’ I don’t want him to deal with all that man.”
The wording here is bizarre to say the least. “For something his daddy did” sounds a hell of a lot like, “yeah, I done did it. I done did LeBron’s mamma.” Allegedly of course. I don’t know about you but that’s probably as close as we’re going to get to the truth.
