Sixers Fans Call Lakers Star LeBron James Hypocritical

It's been a strange second-half of the season for Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James. Amid his MVP-caliber year, the superstar found himself injured a couple of months ago, which kept him off the court for a while and shot down his chances of winning the NBA MVP award.

Recently, James discussed his injury and seemingly threw shade at Atlanta Hawks guard Soloman Hill for diving at his leg and causing the All-Star to injure his ankle.

“It’s been hard to tackle it," James said recently, per J.R. De Groote. "I was playing some of the best basketball of my career before the injury. It was not a self-inflicted wound or something I could control. It wasn’t like I wasn’t putting in the work, and then my body failed me. I literally had a grown man diving at my leg for a loose ball."

As LeBron's alleged "shade" thrown at Hill made its rounds, Philadelphia 76ers fans weren't too pleased with the idea of LeBron blaming somebody else for injuring him and hurting his chances of competing for MVP, when the Lakers star did something similar to Sixers big man Joel Embiid and shrugged it off as nothing.

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— Prez💊 ‘ (@PresidentEmbiid) May 17, 2021

A grown man pushed, the then mvp leader Embiid, to the ground and walked away.
— Annas Chaudhary (@annaschaudhary) May 17, 2021

Back in February, LeBron and the Lakers paid a visit to the Sixers in Philly for the first of their two matchups against each other. Embiid, who was having himself a stellar outing, looked to take it up a notch as he attempted to posterize LeBron.

Instead of going up and attempting to block Embiid's shot or just getting dunked on -- LeBron gave Embiid a little shove in mid-air, which caused him to take a hard fall. For weeks following that incident, Embiid missed a handful of games due to back stiffness as a result of LeBron's shove.

Of course, months later, Sixers fans have found LeBron's comments aimed towards Hill as hypocritical, considering he did something similar to Embiid and didn't seem to have any remorse for how the play went down and what the results were afterward.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_ & Instagram: @JGrassoNBA.