LeBron James air-balled a free throw, and then Twitter tried to dunk on him

Tom Gatto

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LeBron James air-balled a free throw, and then Twitter tried to dunk on him image

LeBron James isn't the world's greatest free throw shooter. He's at 73 percent for his career and 71 percent this season. But because he's King James, he's going to get tons of grief whenever one of his free throws misses badly.

Case in point: his air ball in the third quarter Thursday against the Nuggets. It was nothing but net — just the wrong side of the net.

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Twitter, naturally, had thoughts moments after that happened. Some of its attempts were equally weak and off line.

Maybe Twitter was distracted by its hatred for the referees, who missed an inbounds violation by James earlier in the game and then called multiple fouls against the Nuggets. Those were clear signs to the haters that the officials are in James' pocket and the league wants the Lakers to win.

In other words, the peanut gallery was launching more air balls.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.