Here’s another look at the That Was It? dunk that disappointed everyone yesterday, but at least this one doesn’t have a watermark on it. I’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of something being overblown simply because of a party’s efforts to restrict information from everyone. I learned that when I was nine. I don’t know why Nike and ESPN haven’t figured that out yet.

ESPN offered the creator of this video $500, according to Dan Levy in a post for Sporting Blog. The monolith’s offer came well short of the $5,000 paid by eBaumnation for this clip, which is much better quality than that fogged up video on TMZ.

Levy asks if the future of journalism will come down to news agencies paying citizens for various bits of camera footage, and I’ll answer him under the assumption that journalism isn’t already dead: why wouldn’t they? News teams have no issue keeping camera operators on staff and paying them; this is just classic crowdsourcing. It keeps everyone honest and, as was proven here, keeps them in the know as well. The practice of journalism is enriched when we are all witnesses, and the pulling of some of that power out of the hands of the elite media couldn’t come at a better time.

Here it is: Jordan Crawford dunking on LeBron James. The dunk takes place in the nearcourt at about the 0:35 mark. Yeah, Nike went all Chinese Google over this. Thanks to KOGOD for the find, and for having to deal with all the red tape from TMZ, which you can read after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

A certain online tabloid (which some people don’t think of as a blog, but never mind) has purchased the video of LeBron getting famously dunked on at his basketball camp earlier this month. The protagonist, Xavier sophomore Jordan Crawford, dunked on LeBron during a scrimmage, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers guard to allegedly ask Nike to confiscate any video footage of the event.

LeBron’s people and Nike reportedly confiscated all video proof of the moment LeBron got taken to the HOLE — but we finally found the one SURVIVING copy of the moment LeBron became LeBitch … and it’s awesome!!!! via!!!

So check back there at 6:45 PM tonight, or wait 15 minutes and watch it here. Eventually these athletes, shoe companies, and networks are going to learn that they can’t sterilize every aspect of what happens in their lives. It seems obvious that this tape has no chance of living up to the hype, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that now it’s out there, and we’ll see it, and we can rip on LeBron to our heart’s content. And that’s the way we like it. Screw Nike; we’re the consumers. We get what we want. And that’s the natural order of things when we’re all witnesses.

“Who’s better? Kobe or Lebron?” Well, let’s see…I think we’ve established that Kobe is the better penetrator, but LeBron seems to have less talent around him. No, I don’t mean his teammates. I mean some of the lovely ladies at this Playboy Mansion party. Seriously, if you owned the Playboy Mansion, you’d have to install a BatCave, right? And then floor underneath the stripper pole in the living room would give way and I’d slide down to the Batmobile for a night of fighting crime. Or rival pimps. Whatever. via.

I don’t really know where one draws the line at obsessive sports fandom (that’s why America have a legal system, after all), but I’m pretty sure that it falls somewhere around collecting things that have been in your favorite player’s mouth. And sure, Olympic gold medals are an obvious exception to that rule. But this guy…I’m just wondering if he coordinates all of those jerseys with pants, or if he just mixes and matches. I bet he has a system for it, and yells at his mom whenever she tries to interfere. Parents just don’t understand.

|The Hoop Doctors|

LeBron James will be entering the final season of his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers this fall. With the uncertainty of his desire to re-sign with that team, the Cavs brass felt the need to make a big move on the eve of the NBA Draft. How big? Roughly 7-feet-1-inch, 325 pounds big. From Y! Sports:

Cleveland will send Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, the 46th pick in Thursday’s draft and cash to the Suns for Shaquille O’Neal.

Cleveland and Phoenix were both juggling multiple trade possibilities with other teams, with the Cavs involved with as many as six trade scenarios.

Stock Lemon reports that Shaq found out about the trade via Twitter, and whether or not that’s true, the deal is one of the major shockwaves rippling through everyone’s draft boards. The other involves a trade executed by the Washington Wizards, acquiring Randy Foye (he of the 16.3 points per game) and Mike Miller (9.9 ppg, 37% 3-pt shooting) for their No. 5 pick and three other players you probably don’t care about.

I’m not sure how Shaq’s move really helps, aside from the obvious fact that the Cavs get to play one fewer white guy now. Is he the last piece of the championship puzzle for Cleveland? Maybe…after they move the team to Columbus, because they’re not winning anything in Cleveland. It’s not like they’re Detroit or anything.