"At The End Of The Day, It's Just Basketball" - LeBron James, Who Clearly Doesn't Give A Crap About His Job
The phrase "it's just a game" is great to tell your 11-year-old son who can barely dribble down the court without tripping over his own feet. He stinks at basketball, you know he'll never make it to high school varsity let alone the NBA, and you just need him to feel better about himself on the car ride home. "It's just a game, buddy! Don't worry about it! Mommy and Daddy will still love you even if you don't want us to spend thousands of dollars for you to play on a travel team next season".
"It's just a game" is an elite coping mechanism. Because sure, you're right. In the grand scheme of life it is just a silly little game. The sun comes up tomorrow and the world continues to spin the same regardless of who shoots more orange balls into a piece of netting attached to a metal rim. But it's only ever "just a game" when you're getting the shit kicked out of you. Unless you're Jokic trying to get back to your horses in Serbia, it's never "just a game" when you're winning championships and cementing your legacy as one of the greatest to ever play the game.
Then it's going to war with your brothers. Then the game means absolutely everything to you. It's your whole entire life since the moment you were on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a high school junior. It's not just a game, it's the most important piece of your existence that you can't imagine life without. All you think about all day long is winning that game. You become so obsessed with the game that it turns into your job, your livelihood, and the reason you get out of bed in the morning.
So there are only 2 options here. 1) LeBron James stinks at basketball and is just trying to make himself feel better about it. Or 2) the man simply does not care about his job anymore. Imagine a doctor showing up to the hospital one day and saying it's just a game. You probably wouldn't want that doctor performing any more surgeries, now would ya? You'd probably never put that doctor into the conversation of the greatest doctor of all time, now would ya? You especially wouldn't want to keep him around the hospital any longer just so he can perform surgeries with his son in another couple of years, now would ya?