It’s true that many basketball fans and pundits thought LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers had almost no chance to win the NBA Finals.

It’s true that a prominent ESPN talking head said, before the Finals, that LeBron would surrender the NBA “King” title to Stephen Curry, if Curry and the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cavs.

It’s true that over the past two seasons some journalists suggested LeBron did not really get along with his Cleveland teammates or his former coach, and certainly someone in Miami must have said his departure from the Heat for the cold of Cleveland was a bad idea.

But for the two-plus weeks of the Finals, LeBron was sphinx-like, on the topic of being second-guessed on his decisions and analyzed as a player on the back side of his career.

When it was over, and LeBron was the catalyst for a stirring comeback from a 3-1 deficit to victory in Game 7, the lasting image — or so we thought — was LeBron weeping tears of joy after winning a championship — for Cleveland, for his team, for himself. Which would have been a perfect way to be remembered.

And then he went and screwed it up in an Instagram post today.

LeBron’s post was the tired and trivial and childish post-victory boasting about how “no one believed in me” and “I showed them”, blah blah blah.

When he was this close to taking the high road right through the playoffs and into the summer. When he truly would have shown his strength of character with silence or making more positive remarks about his team and his city — as he did in the first hours of the Game 7 victory.

It is disappointing.

Athletes striking back at the “them” and “they” is the most exhausted trope/meme in sports. Every athlete on the face of the earth apparently has a deep and unending need to insist “they” were out to get him.

When I was a sports editor, I banned my reporters from using any quote from the “no one believed in us” bag of cliches, as well as any suggestion about “silencing the critics” — which never is true, for starters.

LeBron could have demonstrated anew that he was different and above the others by holding off on the posting of that message.

I have no doubt all sorts of trolls are out there, taking random shots at LeBron and just about any other elite athlete. The desire to fight back must be strong.

But the only dignified response is to ignore criticism. Do what you do, and if you win … the results are the most eloquent defense possible.

So, he didn’t stick the landing, as they say in gymnastics.

He had a perfect routine going there till he came off the bar and hit the mat and stumbled badly, while wearing his RWTW (roll with the winners) shirt and felt compelled to do what any other persecuted athlete would do.

He could have made history by letting his superior performances tell us all we needed to know. He put on his “nyah-nyah” face and stepped into the mire of social media.

I wish LeBron hadn’t done that.