Why LeBron James is quitting social media
The 20.6 million people who follow @KingJames on Twitter are going to have to wait to hear from him until after the postseason.
Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James (23) drives past Boston Celtics’ Evan Turner (11) during the first round NBA playoff basketball game Sunday, April 19, 2015, in Cleveland.
Tony Dejak/AP
With a third NBA championship ring within reach, LeBron James has no room for distractions, so he is going off the grid: no Twitter, no Facebook, no phone.
As James heads to the playoffs with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he is going on a temporary social-media lockdown in order to focus on the upcoming games.
"I don't have no phones, no social media, I don't have anything," LeBron told the Associated Press. "I don't care about nonsense. There's too much nonsense out there. Not during this time, this is when I lock in right now and I don't need nothing creeping into my mind that don't need to be there."
This is the fourth consecutive year in which James has left social media for the playoffs to isolate himself from distractions and derogatory comments, saying the only communication he needs is with his family and his teammates.
After playing for the Miami Heat for four seasons, this will be his first championship with the Cavaliers since he left the team in 2010. And if the social-media hiatus is any indicator of success on the court, James’s team has won two of the three championships during which he abstained from communicating with the public.
Now accustomed to this playoffs ritual, he refers to the the exercise as “zero dark thirty.”
"Everybody does their own thing," James told USA Today. "I'm the leader of this team and I've got to be more in tuned than anybody, that's how I approach it. It was hard early on, but I've been doing it for a few years now. It is very tough to just be away from everything. It's just a challenge. I love challenges."
James’ teammate forward Kevin Love is following suit.
"I'm not going to turn off my phone," Love told USA Today. "But social media, no. I won't be throwing up any of my chocolate milk ads for a couple months.
For the 20.6 million people who follow @KingJames on Twitter and can’t wait until the end of the playoffs to hear from him, he will be sharing videos on @uninterrupted, a twitter feed started by The Bleacher Report to share real-time athlete-driven content throughout the NBA postseason.