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LeBron Has Arthritis in His Foot and a Bad Lower Back, Like Every Other 41-Year-Old
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Dave McMenamin wrote a great, in-depth piece about LeBron and the new-look Sixers that ran on Monday, but as is the way of the internet, a few small tidbits got aggregated and blasted all over Twitter. Dave’s mention of LeBron’s bad foot and lower back is the big one making waves online today, and it has me laughing.
For reference, here’s the throwaway line about it in Dave’s actual piece:
And there is special attention paid to his left foot, which has chronic arthritis, sources told ESPN, and his lower back, which caused him to miss the first month of last season because of sciatica.
And here’s the context-less Twitter version that everyone’s using to concern troll the Sixers:
The tweet is trying very hard to make LeBron’s bad foot and back sound like real problems, when in reality, it’s a non-story that’s barely worth mentioning. Every 41-year-old on the planet has these exact ailments. In fact, I’d venture to say most people over 30 have this sort of stuff going on.
I’m 33 and have had a knot under my right shoulder blade for like seven years now. I don’t know how to get rid of it. Massages make it worse (irritates/inflames the muscle maybe? I Googled it once and it said something like that) and I’m afraid of going to a chiropractor because I don’t want them to accidentally break my neck. I see Reels sometimes of chiropractors putting a belt or strap under a guy’s chin and then yanking straight up, and then there’s a sound like an empty water bottle being crushed and the guy on the table whinnies like a horse and starts crying. I don’t want that. The belts/straps don’t even look like doctor-type tools. They seem like regular belts/straps the doctor had at his house and brought in:
This next guy uses a towel. Looks like a regular-ass towel from a Hilton. You know that towel smells nuts. This would be a bad way to die:
Kinker also told me to mention he is 42 and has back pain and soreness in his right hand at all times. It’s not a HIPAA violation for me to mention this. He gave me the figurative thumbs-up. A real thumbs-up would blind him with pain…
The point is, do we let these chronic injuries stop us from performing at work? Do our bad backs and hands and necks prevent us from writing Philly’s most irreverent blogs? The answer is no. We manage the pain like warriors and perform (write blogs) at an elite level day in and day out. LeBron will do the same.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com