Hey Lebron, There Were Plenty Of Witnesses, To You Getting Dunked On

Michael Jordan dunks over Patrick Ewing in the 1991 Playoffs.

John Starks dunks over both Jordan and Horace Grant in the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals.

Scottie Pippen posterizes Patrick Ewing off of a fastbreak in Game Six of the Eastern Conference Semis in 1994.

Kevin Johnson dunks over Hakeem Olajuwon during those same playoffs. A play that subsequently got immortalized in a statue given to KJ from the Suns organization.

Chris Webber goes behind his back on a fastbreak to put it down over Charles Barkley in a highlight that was included on NBA commercials for YEARS afterwards.

Vince Carter jumps completely over the head of a seven-foot Frenchman in the 2000 Olympics. Yes, you read that right. Completely over his head.

Nobody’s immune. Nobody’s special. It’s a part of the game. So where does Lebron James get off with his this latest display of nobody's worthy?

During a pickup game at a Nike basketball camp in Akron, Xavier’s Jordan Crawford apparently posterized “The King”.  It’s too bad none of us will ever see it. That’s because in LBJ’s ongoing attempt to kill the way the basketball world views him,  instructed Nike reps to confiscate the tapes, or any evidence that the dunk ever happened.

What he doesn’t realize in all of his infinite wisdom is, just because you hide the evidence, doesn’t mean it never happened. It was a game, with other players, in a gym filled with people who saw the play happen.

This is someone we watched all season, who led his team to a league best 66-wins en route to an MVP award, showboat, flex and pose for a solid nine months. Nearly every Cleveland game was televised this season and one didn’t have to leave the television on TNT long to see Lebron or his teammates showing another team up.

That display lasted approximately nine months and two playoff series. It all stopped when they ran into Orlando. And that’s when the real Lebron James showed himself.

I don’t know a lot of things, but I know people. And there are three things that will tell you everything you need to know about a person:

1.    How they treat people they’re not obligated to be nice to
2.    How they react to adversity
3.    How they accept failure.

Since James’ season ended, he hasn’t shown us much in the way of all three.
First it was his display following the Eastern Conference Finals when he not only left the court without so much as a handshake for the anyone on Orlando’s team, but left his teammates to address the media.  The day afterwards, instead of being a good sport, he addresses the media but still doesn’t congratulate the Magic.

“I don’t like to lose. I’m a winner. I can’t see myself congratulating someone who just kicked my butt.”

Ok. Who likes to lose? Isaiah Thomas, as great a point guard as he was, will sadly be remembered for how he and the rest of the Pistons walked off of the court in 1991 without shaking the hands of the Chicago Bulls.

Now remember, just a few days earlier, when he hit, “the shot heard around Cleveland”, James planted himself at center court and waited for the cameras and microphones to find him. He was more than willing to let the media fawn all over him while he basked in his perpetual greatness.

Now the fiasco this week where instead of letting a college kid in Crawford have his moment of fame, Lebron chose to get rid of any concrete proof that the dunk or the game actually happened. It’s like something out of a Scorsese movie.

But what The King doesn’t realize is that in hiding the proof, he’s actually made it worse. People everywhere are talking about it and not just the dunk itself, but why he did what he did.  People want to know, does he think he’s bigger than the game?

James should take a cue from Crawford, who is handling the whole thing like it should be handled. He’s treating it like something that happened in a basketball game, and not like something that will forever change the way he’s viewed by his fans and basketball peers.

On the other side, Lebron’s actions and selfishness over something as petty as a dunk in a pickup basketball game certainly won’t tarnish his legacy but will no doubt remain as a footnote on the pages of his storied career when he hangs up his sneakers.

We’ve seen this with players like Terrell Owens who eventually morphed into “T.O.” and Chad Johnson who now goes by Chad Ochocinco. And now, James who not only goes by “King James” but also believes he is an actual king.

He’s a person who believes he deserves the hype and who apparently believes he has the power to decide who receives attention on the basketball court and just how much, as long as it doesn’t overshadow him, if even for one play.

No one has noticed it but the King stopped being Lebron when he entered the league, when everyone anointed him the title of greatest player of all-time before he ever took one shot. The humble kid from Akron, Ohio disappeared as soon as he started drinking hype-flavored Kool-aid.

And we were all witnesses.