LeBron James Became an Instant Sad Meme After Getting Blocked by Mario Hezonja

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers were up 11 points with three minutes to go in Sunday’s game against the New York Knicks. It looked like the team was going to leave Madison Square Garden with a rare W — a tiny ray of hope in an otherwise hapless season.

And then, just like that, darkness fell.

The Knicks — the worst team in the NBA, mind you — mustered a 13-1 run, taking the lead by one point. LeBron had a chance to win the game at the buzzer and craft another iconic, highlight reel-worthy moment. But naaah. Instead, he got stuffed like a Pizza Hut crust by the apparent defensive powerhouse that is Mario Hezonja. Keep an eye on James after the miss:

Dude stormed right off the court, skipping the traditional postgame daps between players and beelining straight to the locker room. He didn’t so much as glance at any of his teammates. Yikes.

It didn’t help that James’ feeble shot attempt made him look like Lenny from The Simpsons trying to dunk. So spiritless was the effort that it prompted Hezonja to look back at Bron all like, “Is this your king?”

But the content-able moments didn’t stop there. The below photo was shot at a different moment in the game, but nevertheless accurately encapsulates the Fyre Fest of a season LeBron’s had. (The Lakers’ current record is 31-39.)

Naturally, there were copious memes.

https://twitter.com/CurryDagger/status/1107355929329258499

Such pathos! In the pantheon of sad memes, this is up there with Sadfleck. Maybe even sadder. It makes Pepe look like a bowl of sunshine. If I were a meme auteur, I’d caption this something like, “LeBron James is all of us this Monday.” Or, like, “That feeling when you think you got a text from your crush but it’s actually just your mom.” Yup, this stuff writes itself.