LeBron James hits back at Zlatan Ibrahimovic's jibe over getting involved in politics

Four-time NBA champion LeBron James has hit back at AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic following the Swede's recent comments on the Lakers superstar. Earlier this week, Zlatan claimed that sportspeople like LeBron should quit sticking their noses into politics. However, LeBron, in a lengthy response, has now reiterated that he will never reject an opportunity to speak out about injustice and called out the footballer for his hypocrisy.

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LeBron James responds to Zlatan's comments

On Thursday, while speaking to Discovery+ in Sweden, Zlatan Ibrahimovic aimed a sly dig at NBA icon LeBron James. The 39-year-old said, "I like him (James) a lot. He’s phenomenal, but I don’t like when people with a status speak about politics. Do what you’re good at doing. This is the first mistake famous people do when they become famous: for me it is better to avoid certain topics and do what you’re good at doing, otherwise you risk doing something wrongly.”

Zlatan was referring to LeBron's longtime activism on racial justice issues and his public criticism of the USA's 45th president, Donald Trump. The comments by Ibrahimovic, whose two-year spell with LA Galaxy overlapped with James’ time in Los Angeles, didn't go down well with the 17-time NBA All-Star. LeBron, however, waited until Friday night, after the Lakers' 102-93 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, to respond to the AC Milan attacker. 

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In a lengthy response, while speaking to reporters, LeBron also pointed out his causes which help the underprivileged, saying, "At the end of the day, I would never shut up about things that are wrong. I preach about my people and I preach about inequality, social injustice, racism, systematic voter suppression, things that go on in our community because I was part of my community at one point and seeing things that are going on. I know what's going on still because I have a group of 300-plus kids at my school that are going through the same thing and they need a voice."

There’s no way I would ever just stick to sports, because I understand this platform and how powerful my voice is. He can just ask Renee Montgomery if I would have shut up and just dribbled, just seeing that beautiful Black woman today be part of a group — she’s part of the ownership group with the Atlanta Dream.

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LeBron went on to call out Ibrahimovic's hypocrisy considering comments that he has made about racism in the past. "It's funny he said that, because I believe in 2018 he was the same guy who said when he was back in Sweden, he was talking about the same things because his last name wasn't a certain last name, he felt like there was racism going on when he was out on the pitch."

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Image Credits - Zlatan Ibrahimovic, LeBron James Instagram