Who do you think is the most hated athlete in the world? Aside from the NBA, fans would predict certain football players to fall into this category. However, in a bizarre stat, players like LeBron James and Stephen Curry top the list of the most abused professional athletes. Or are they now? Well, in the last three years, a lot has changed in the league. Steph won his fourth title and broke the record for the most threes put in place by Ray Allen. At the same time, LeBron James became the all-time scoring leader.

Of course, these players have established their greatness just recently. Then why are fans hating on them? The answer to this question would be a set of false information. A recent tweet posted by ‘utdreport’ has been making rounds on the internet. The post includes the list of most abused professional athletes and ranks LeBron James at the top of the list with 122,568 abusive messages. On the other hand, Steph Curry ranks 9th on the list with 11,203 negative messages.

But you will be surprised to know that this report actually dates back to 2021! This has quite a lot of fans believing that the said stat is actually quite recent. In fact, this particular stat was released in July 2021. One of the fans even exposed the Twitter account saying, “You posted this in 2021..Rashford was having 32,238 with Lebron on top with 122,568 and now in 2024 it’s still the same number?”.

As the stat suggests, the rankings were based on tweets sent in the past 12 months at the time. In short, the messages date back to 2020 when the NBA moved to the Bubble. Well, fans were mostly at home enjoying the action giving out all sorts of opinions.

Also, there were a lot of fans who weren’t fond of watching James win his fourth title in Orlando. It came to a point where there were two sides to the story. Some fans considered the 2020 postseason to be the most competitive series in a long time, while others would discredit the playoff run. This may have been the reason why James received more than 100k negative comments online. But what about the Chef?

Steph Curry and LeBron James finally united fans

While Steph’s 11k+ abusive messages might have come from his 2020-21 season run when he won his second scoring title. Of course, now, with huge accomplishments comes quite the hate. But then again, players like Steph and Bron are used to it. Three years after this report was published, the Chef and James united their fans. As Steph finally made his first Olympic appearance, he teamed up with LeBron and his former teammate Kevin Durant to strive for the gold medal.

The NBA World came together to root for Team USA while also witnessing Steph and Bron in action. Yes, the two were teammates during the All-Star game, but the Olympics brought serious energy to the game, especially during the Semi-Finals when Curry and James came together to deliver a historic performance. Despite all the hate, fans will never forget the Paris Olympics run.

What are your thoughts on LeBron James receiving the most abusive messages three years ago? Do you think Steph and LeBron deserve such hate? Let us know in the comments.

Feel that you can do with another update from the sport of basketball? Then do check out this recent interview with the up-and-coming Georgia Lady Bulldogs star Asia Avinger.