Thoughts from a Basement Athlete

The Dunk. Xavier sophmore, Jordan Crawford, peals off a screen and streaks for the hoop. Lebron leaves his man and turns toward Crawford to provide help defense. He leaps in hopes of swatting the young buck’s effort away, but he is just a hair late. The student athlete throws it down with two hands and the planet’s greatest player is helpless to prevent it – at Lebron’s own summer camp no less.

As countless media outlets have already declared, it’s a joke that we ever heard about this dunk in the first place. The reputation of Lebron’s athletic superiority was unthreatened by this rare moment. Now the masochistic tendencies of celebrity kick in. We only heard about “the dunk” because of the cover up by Lebron and his crew. Any attempt to camouflage this innocuous event guarantees that the story will be told. Only by trying to conceal it could the dunk become noteworthy in everyone’s mind. 

When I heard that someone had dunked on Lebron I thought, “That must of been cool for that kid.” When I heard that someone had dunked on Lebron and he was desperate to cover it up, I was picturing Jordan Crawford soaring through the key like a hybrid of MJ in the ’88 dunk contest and one of Hagrid’s Hippogriffs, throwing it down with stadium-rattling force, raising a victorious battle cry, and pounding his chest as Lebron cowers in defeat and fear.

Let’s assume for the moment that the dunk was a flash of athletic domination. Does Lebron really think that he has something to fear? The man just hit a 25+ foot fade away 3-pointer to win a playoff game. Just over a month ago he put the Cavs on his back – Samwise Gamgee style – and singlehandedly pushed the Eastern Conference Championship to 7 games. Even in defeat, he remains at the peak of his deity status with the media. ESPN anchors fawn over him, nearly reading personally written love notes to him. Sportscenter loves Lebron like CNN loves Obama (and that’s saying something). We wouldn’t have dethroned “King James” because some young kid had briefly shown him up. 

For a man who molds his image like a parent seeks to groom his child, he sure doesn’t know how to help himself out. Nothing new to see here I’m afraid. The spotlight provided to celebrities apparently blinds them to – even self-interested – common sense. Forget displaying a Nixonian “destroy the tape” moment – a skilled, pragmatic egotist would have eagerly broken the story himself. His image would have gone through the roof. Had a grinning Mr. James gushed to anyone who would listen about how “sick” this kid’s dunk was and how much fun it was to play with this young rising star, the effect would have been magnetic. Even his haters would have been grudgingly acknowledging his class act. A humble, confident Lebron James would be irresistible. Secure greatness is very attractive. The media infatuation would have adopted the worshipful tones usually reserved for Oprah or Obama.

Achieving both adoration and admiration is not accomplished through hiding evidence and tattooing “Chosen 1” across your back. That tattoo belongs on a guy with the last-name “Ocho-Cinco” more than it does on anyone who is actually “chosen” or who desires stature as well as sensation. This incident reveals nothing more than a needlessly insecure man. An extraordinary guy who still doesn’t know how to get where he wants to be.

Maybe he doesn’t know.