ABC’s new censorship woe: LeBron James accidentally exposes self during NBA Finals

Given that the NBA Finals, just like all sporting events, are live television, there is always a certain amount of potential for anything to go wrong at almost any moment. This is what happened during Thursday night’s broadcast of the basketball game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors on ABC.  During a close-up shot of star player LeBrown James at one point during the telecast, you can see him adjusting his shorts and his uniform, and at one point accidentally exposing himself to basically every person watching at home. We’re not meaning to turn this into some gossip article where we objectify someone; instead, let’s figure out how this happened.

Of course, some of the blame is on ABC, but at the same time few networks would have done anything differently. Networks love close-up shots of the players, and all of this coverage is part of the experience of watching an NBA telecast. This helps to fund the league, so no way it goes away even if there are complaints about it being invasive. (Of course, we’re sure the FCC is getting many complaints over this tonight.)

Also, basketball players are not going to start to change their uniforms out of fear of something like this. There’s been so many years of training put into what are the best things to wear out on the court to maximize performance.

Ultimately, some organizations may try to make this story into something even bigger than it is, but what we’re ultimately ruling it as a reasonably unavoidable mistake, unless ABC wants to start to put their telecasts on a larger delay to catch things like that. Following this incident (which was purely an accident), we’ll see what happens.

For now, chime in with your thoughts below, and head over here to get other TV updates on all we cover, courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)