Humphries, LeBron, Kobe make poll of most disliked athletes

I had lunch a couple weeks ago at a popular spot near my house, and a couple seats down two early 20s, attractive women from a local health spa sat down for lunch. The Nets game replay was on television and the two started talking about Kris Humphries — “He’s so cute but he was such an a****** to Kim.” I guess if you watch all her reality shows you call her Kim. Anyway they spent five minutes trashing him, talking about how that big, mean basketball player treated their poor, innocent heroine. It was a glimpse into another world for me.

Apparently, there are a lot of people out there who feel the same way.

Forbes released poll results of the top 10 most disliked athletes in America and Humphries was the highest ranked basketball player. The poll, done by the Nielsen Group, also had LeBron James and Kobe Bryant on the list, as you would expect.

Humphries’ 72-day marriage to Kim Kardashian vaulted him into pop culture, but everything went poorly. Well, except they made a lot of money. Of the people surveyed, 50 percent had a negative view of Humphries, almost none of that based on his shaky midrange game. A lot of them, like those girls at the restaurant I overheard, in a year will have trouble remembering who Humphries was because Kim will have trapped someone else in her Web.

The good news (okay, relatively good news) is that Humphries finished fifth on the list, with LeBron sixth (48 percent dislike) and Kobe seventh (45 percent) — the top spots go to Michael Vick and Tiger Woods, with Plaxico Burress rounding out the top three. The NBA guys seem to be sliding down the list. What will be interesting to see is if LeBron can win a ring and if so does that impact where he stands on these lists?