Nike: Greek Goddess of Confiscating Tapes
Posted: July 9th, 2009 | Filed under: Media, Other Sports | 72 Comments »
So you probably know by now that a college player at Xavier — Jordan Crawford — dunked over LeBron James during a pickup game at the “LeBron James Skills Academy” in Akron.
I’ve only read a little bit about it but from what i understand, it went down like this:
Crawford took the ball at James, they both jumped, Crawford did a 360, then another 360, then he took off one of his shoes and bonked James in the head with it, put the shoe back on, pulled out a shaving cream pie and shoved that in James face, took out a bottle of seltzer water and sprayed James, then he poked James in the eye Three Stooges style, then he came up with a quick hip hop song called “Be Gone Lebron,” then he pinched James’ cheek, beat James at thumb wrestling, gave James a wedgie and, finally, dunked the ball, two-handed, rattling the rim, while James cried like a child lost at the mall.
Anyway, that’s what I heard. I cannot verify this, though, because there is no surviving footage of this dunk. You may ask: “What? LeBron James played in a basketball game that NOBODY filmed? I mean, people have video cameras on their PHONES now. You mean, nobody filmed this thing?” Well, no, there were people filming it.
But after the dunk, well, according to CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish — who heard this from someone who was there and involved — LeBron called over a Nike official named Lynn. The two had a brief conversation. And then the Nike official called out his Nike storm troopers, who promptly ran around the place shooting lasers and confiscating any and all tapes of the offending dunk.
Now, I know there are some people who find this to be ridiculous. I know there are some who find it to be insulting. I know there are even some who find it to be, kind of, Animal Farmish — you know, confiscating tapes, suppressing the news, blocking the freedom of the Press and America’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — happiness, in this case, being our unalienable right to laugh at LeBron as he gets faced by a college kid.
But I just want to say: No. I’m on Nike’s side here. And it’s not even close. I think Nike, being Nike — after making all those great shoes and giving us all those great commercials, and coming up with that slogan “Just Do It,” (loved that slogan) — yes, I think they have every right (no, more than right, they have every duty) to protect their clients, to comfort the comfortable, to afflict the afflicted, to keep someone as beloved as LeBron James off of YouTube. I mean, what? Are we supposed to allow impressionable young people to believe that LeBron James, THE LeBron James, got dunked on by some rank amateur at a school nobody pronounces correctly?*
*It’s ZAY-vee-ur. Not ex-ZAY-vee-ur.
Nay, I say.
Personally speaking, I don’t think Nike went far enough. Personally, I think they should …
1. Confiscate every and all tapes of Game 6 of the 2009 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. I don’t care if they have to break into homes and erase every Tivo in North America. Get rid of that thing. Never happened. The Finals did NOT match up Orlando and Los Angeles. Those LeBron-Kobe muppets make perfect sense again.
2. Confiscate the 2009 U.S. Open. This is an easy one to make go away … after it rained for 40 days and 40 nights nobody watched it anyway. Confiscate the entire Open and start spreading the rumor that Tiger Woods actually made putts and won the thing. That would put him only three behind Jack!
3. Confiscate the last two years of Michael Jordan’s basketball career. And, while they are at it, they can confiscate his entire career as a basketball executive.
4. Confiscate the entire 2006 Winter Olympics. Remember how Nike pumped up of ultimate rebel Bode Miller before those Olympics? No you don’t. Never happened. Confiscated.
5. Confiscate all these absurd “statistical analyses” when it comes to “baseball defense.” Those things are stupid. And in years past these things have made Derek Jeter look bad. Can’t have it. Send out the Brute Squad. Make those basement-dwelling-nerds have over their slide rulers and spreadsheets peacefully or else take them away! UZR, my butt.
6. Make people forget that Nike hero Shawne Merriman is a steroid cheat. Oh wait, that’s already done. Good work, team. Check that off the list.
7. Confiscate all those old Penny and Lil’ Penny commercials. Confiscate all video of Roger Federer crying after he lost to Nike teammate Rafael Nadal. Gone.
8. Confiscate Matt Leinart.
What did Matt Leinart do to be mentioned in this post?
Dan and Dave were Reebok, weren’t they? Not that it matters.
I already feel bad for Lindsey Vonn, who seems like a nice person, but is doomed to fail in Vancouver by the hype machine already building. It’s that much more incredible that Phelps could do what he did.
Don’t forget about the 2004 ALCS. According to Nike that never happened and Jeter won another ring.
Suck?
There’s sarcasm, there’s biting sarcasm, there’s cartoon-serrated-bear-trap sarcasm, and then there is Joe Posnanski when he’s on a roll.
Also, would “Circle me, Jim,” fit here as a Jim Palmer-loving O’s fan (he even does TV broadcasts, too!)?
I sense you are gently mocking us.
If, as you say, Lebron’s the one that initiated the confiscation, why are you bashing Nike (and WTF do the rest of their clients have to do with it?)? Listening to your most marketable athlete’s wishes isn’t evil, it’s smart business. “King” James is the douche in all this.
Kind of weak, Joe. Could of made the same point in 30 words.
You know, I never had this problem.
I think he also strapped LeBron to a chair and made him watch Kazaam.
Listening to your top client when he’s acting like a douche–and when it will bite him in the ass, at least a bit–is dumb. It’s not quite “only obeying orders,” but it makes LeBron look FAR worse than being dunked on.
A smart move would be to use the tape in a funny commercial. Or if that would violate NCAA rules, do the same situation, then LeBron gets new Nike shoes, and he schools the player in the rematch.
ASSUMING that everything really happened as the rumor mill tells us (not always a safe assumption), my main question is, “What for, LeBron?”
I like to think that if a high school pitcher managed to strike out Babe Ruth in an exhibition match, the Babe would have laughed, shaken the young pitcher’s hand, posed for a picture with him and said, “See you in the big leagues in a few years, kid.”
And that’s ALL LeBron had to do. Sure, he’s a proud man, a highly competitive man, and hates to be bested even in an informal setting. But this would all have blown over if LeBron had just had the good sense to smile, give the kid a high five and laugh, “Nice going, man- I hope the Cavs draft you in a few years!”
The Chosen One
You know what’s missing from the rumor/story? Anything about who won the game, or — if the game was stopped early — who won.
No one is implying that LeBron actually lost the game. So, we’re talking about being dunked on in a game he won, right?
WTF?
This smacks of the attitude that says “If I block your shot out of bounds five straight times and your score the sixth time, I’m better than you 5-1.” It’s junk. It’s arrogence over showmanship, rather than arrogence about winning. You can dunk on me 9 times if I can get ugly layups on you 11 times — game to 11, right?
LeBron got dunked on? Why would anyone care? Someone can outjump him, given the right circumstances? Oh, what will we ever do?
It’s sad that this has been made a bigger deal without the video, than it would have been with.
Funny stuff, but, um, Joe, perhaps the KC Star should confiscate the last _two_ seasons of UZR data that shows Jeter as about average on defense… or that shows Adam Dunn to actuallly be overpaid, huh?
It’s 2009. Fire Joe Morgan’s been gone since the World Series, Baseball Prospectus is now widely mocked among sabermetricians. Maybe find a new drum to beat?
how is dunn overpaid? 10 million for 6 wins a year sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
devil_fingers has a point everyone. Now that Derek Jeter is an AVERAGE shortstop, all that talk about him winning three consecutive Gold Glove on hype and offensive performance and not defensive prowess can be put aside.
Thank you for setting us straight.
Oh no! The writers’ strike ended so everything FireJoeMorgan ever said or stood for is invalidated!
+1 Xero Pascal.
I don’t understand how Nike was able to suppress/confiscate these tapes. Everything else leaks these days. MLB can’t even suppress identities on drug testing samples with an explicit legal agreement enforcing confidentiality. A politician misspeaks or missteps and it’s all over the web in minutes. But a freaking shoe company can somehow force reporters, kids with cell phones, etc into turning over ALL video footage of an event? That’s bananas.
I can’t believe people willingly gave up their phones or agreed to delete footage. What are we? Sheep?
The Brute Squad =) That should count for some more Princess Bride votes right there.
I guess I can’t honestly say I’m surprised that a guy who embraces the nickname “King” and has permanently inked “Chosen 1″ onto his body would occasionally display some narcissistic tendencies. The fact that Nike decided to feed that particular beast (yet another of his tats) also leaves me underwhelmed.
WE ARE ALL WITNESS– oh wait, I guess not.
I just downloaded “Be Gone Lebron” from iTunes. Pretty sick.
It is a shame the Nike storm troopers were not around to confiscate the two different tapes of George Brett in recent years.
Yes, it is hard to believe that a professional athlete that has been pampered and catered to his entire life was self-centered like this.
Is James’ ego so frail he couldn’t have this come out? What a baby. Proving, once again, that idolizing athletes as great humans (as opposed to great athletes) is a bad, bad idea.
Frankly, any respect I had for James is now gone. He’s just another one of “those” athletes to me, the kind that doesn’t have any idea what the real world is like, that believes the world revolves around him, that has no chance to ever be a real grown up human being.
There’s a difference between saying something is “invalidated” and saying it’s old news.
I guess I don’t talk to enough “baseball experts” who have thought Derek Jeter was a great defensive shortstop.
I can’t argue with Adam Dunn being worth almost 6 wins… over the last three seasons. Maybe you were comparing him to Jose Guillen?
So, who do you guys think will be McCain’s running mate?
- Get away, I’m telling you, or I’ll call the Brute Squad.
- I’m on the Brute Squad.
- You *are* the brute squad.
Man, Nike is missing the boat with this if they don’t use this incident to further promote their brand. All they need to do is show the dunk and have LeBron turn to the camera and say “It must be the shoes!” (I presume that the Xavier player was wearing Nike if he was at a leBron/Nike camp.)
Also, I loved the Joe stuff about the Three Stooges poke in the eye. Lebron should have turned to him and said, “Oh, wise guy, eh?”
I am the brute squad.
Great reductio ad absurbdum, Joe!
“Baseball Prospectus is now widely mocked among sabermetricians.” — devil_fingers #16
Really? Could you please tell us what alternate universe you are currently inhabiting? Or, if it is this one, provide any evidence to support this statement?
Yeah, Shaq and LeBron on the same team is going to work out real well.
I don’t get it. In a situation like this I find it unlikely that LeBron’s even playing all that hard. Who wants to see him rip apart a knee during pickup games? So the kid dunked on him. He probably wasn’t bothering to play top -flight D, or much of anything else. The only trouble is, with no tape nobody will ever know for sure.
#34: DF is right — WARP/VORP are generally regarded as flawed, and EqA has dropped in favor of stats like wOBA, and FRAR isn’t the front-line defensive metric of saber folk either.
Look at any FanGraphs.com player page and you’ll see cutting edge statistical analysis: wOBA, UZR, and WAR.
I don’t know this but why wouldn’t Nike want to confiscate all of the recordings of this incident so that they can then use it for a later interesting commercial? Perhaps LeBron will turn this around for his own betterment before this is all over with…?
The Shawn Merriman bit made me laugh out loud.
‘Good work, team’
Glad you took the “Eggs” out of Eggs avier.
Not many people know this but in the director’s cut of The Natural, after The Whammer is fanned by Roy Hobbs, The Whammer has all the witnesses lined up against the train and shot execution style.
Not sure why that didn’t make the final cut.
So, really, this could have been a lot worse.
#34: “widely mocked” was an overstatement, and there is good stuff there.
But #37 is right — FanGraphs blows away BP for free and THT is better as well. This is true not only for the data they have (by the way FanGraphs has PBP defensive metric [UZR] that shows that Jeter is/was overrated on defense, BP has no PBP at this time on their site). They also have better analysts at this point. Who are the real sabermetricians at BP other than Clay Davenport? Woolner, Silver, and Dan Fox are all long gone.
Heck, Sean “CHONE” Smith of http://www.baseballprojection.com is one guy who came up with a projection system that is as good or better than PECOTA, and historical WAR rankings (including a Retrosheet-based defensive metric that correlates well with UZR), all for free. And he did it all himself (obviously, he learned from others).
This isn’t to say that BP is terrible. They’ve lost good people and haven’t been able to replace them.
I deleted some stuff here, because I don’t want to derail the comments further about this stuff, and I don’t want to overo it. For some sabermetrically-oriented criticisms of BP and their stats, here are some links:
http://fifthoutfielder.blogspot.com/2008/07/isnt-point-of-free-articles-on-pay-site.html
http://walksaber.blogspot.com/2008/05/analysis-of-clay-davenports-eqr-and-eqa.html
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/why_is_eqa_so_complicated/
http://www.drivelinemechanics.com/2009/2/17/760319/justvorp-versus-just-vorp
http://walksaber.blogspot.com/2009/05/comments-on-baseball-prospectus-2009.html
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/baseball_prospectus_warp1_is_wrong/
Should probably force everyone to shave a Nike “check mark” into their head.
This whole incident is blown crazily out of proportion. The guy that was taping said that he only got four minutes of tape, so it’s not like he was taping for hours and then immediately got the Inquisition treatment as soon as Lebron got drunked on. For that matter, we only have his word to even imply that Lebron had something to do with the tape being confiscated. And we also know that taping was not allowed at this event.
So as far as I can tell, here’s the chain of events:
1) Kid from Syracuse starts taping the game without permission, gets four minutes of footage.
2) In that four minutes, Lebron gets dunked on.
3) Someone from Nike notices the kid with a camera at an event where cameras are not allowed, and takes the tape.
4) Kid from Syracuse sees a chance to be on ESPN.
Stating the obvious here (at least to everyone but LeBron), but I think it is deliciously ironic that this thing blew up to be a big deal exactly because they went to such lengths to cover it up. I’m not sure it would even be noteworthy otherwise. Now it’s left to our imagination, and I’m going to imagine that if LeBron and Nike saw the need to destroy any evidence then it must have been the most emasculating moment in the history of basketball. Possibly in sports history.
All very good points out BP and FanGraphs, devil_fingers (huge FanGraphs fan myself). But the reason commenters have been snippy with you is not because of your opinions on sabermetrics, but because you were unnecessarily harsh with Joe in your first post. Which drum is it that Joe is beating, exactly? You can find state-of-the-art sabermetric analysis elsewhere; Joe’s just looking for something interesting and fun to say here. And what exactly is the basis for this nebulous connection you’re making between Joe and Adam Dunn, FJM and BP ? (I suppose you’re linking them all together into some bygone era of online sabermetric analysis dated to about 2007, which is apparently grounds for ridicule.) Basically, you come across as a troll, and it seems like you’re usually above that.
I side with Nike too.
If we stop buying their $150 shoes, the economy might be in trouble.
Dan & Dave need mention as well.
$5 bet Nike uses this footage as the basis of a Lebron commercial in the next 6 months. Doubt anyone’s genius enough to stage this whole thing, but makes total sense to re-purpose this tape to the benefit of everyone involved. Can’t wait to see it.
Dave S @# 45: This is referred to as “The Streisand Effect”
@MarkW #38: wouldn’t it have been a bit more sensible from a PR and a marketing perspective for Nike to *buy* the footage?
Have one of their reps cut a few checks for about 1000 bucks each, on the spot. Then spend the next N months acknowledging that they have the footage, and building up the hype before unveiling the commercial.
Nice t-shirt: “I Dunked On Lebron, But He Stole the Video.”
http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/07/10/amd_lebron-tshirt.jpg
@#44:
“A minor controversy erupted at the LeBron James Skills Academy on Monday night when two videographers recorded a pickup game in which Xavier’s Jordan Crawford dunked on James.
Gary Parrish reported on CBSSports.com that a Nike representative confiscated tapes of the dunk after conferring with James.”
Sounds like it was more than just a few minutes of footage (2 hour game), and it was James’ call at least in part. I still can’t believe everyone voluntarily released the tapes.
Mike I #46: Point taken. I’m actually a huge fan of Joe’s work myself, which is why I’m here, of course. I certainly am embarrassed if I came off as a troll, and I apologize to Joe if he’s even reading this. If he or others want to search around, you can probably find places where I say he’s the best sportswriter in the country, and I mean it.
Obviously, this isn’t a sabermetrics blog. That’s fine. Still, the “Jeter is bad at defense” is/was obvious to anyone who would “get” it, is brought up as much as anything (other than The Machine) on the blog and… well, if you’re going to joke about eliminating Derek Jeter’s UZR scores because they show him to be bad, shouldn’t they show him to be bad? Isn’t that really the condition for the joke?
I wouldn’t care if I didn’t love Joe’s work so much. I liked FJM, too. If only they had worked as hard on not letting the Office atrophy…
oh, and again, not to “take over” the thread (as I noted above when I inserted helpful links). But the “nebulous link” is that FJM also constantly railed on Jeter’s defense, and about how Adam Dunn was “underrated” (and he may have been, but now’s he’s gone into being overrated). These were also common things at BP back in the day… and Adam Dunn and Derek Jeter have been touchstones of Joe’s blogs off and on for a while. Or am I hallucinating?
Again, I wouldn’t care if this was Buster Olney or Ken Rosenthal or something.
All basketball players are equal, but some are more equal than others.
I was thinking the same thing as Mark W. Nike enhances the video and has a commercial set against Lebron hating on his Nike’s and they can superimpose some other shoes on him in the video. Do some oooh’s and aah’s followed by Lebron lacing his Nike’s back on, saying something like the “its got to be the shoes” and…scene. With all the attention this has already gotten the commercial would be must see just for the dunk. And it be effective marketing with the whole, even you can dunk on bron with nike’s.
I’m not sure how statistical evidence that Jeter is now an average SS justifies the 3 gold gloves he won. Presumably, the gold glove should be awarded to the best defensive SS in baseball, not the most average. Also, because there are stats that now show Jeter as an average SS doesn’t preclude the possibility that he was a terrible major league SS during the years that he was awarded the gold gloves (2004-2006). It seems like there’s an obvious point that hey, gold gloves get awarded to players who statistically aren’t evidenced to be the best fielders, and in fact, there are times where gold gloves are awarded to players who statistically are actually fairly poor by major league standards. I don’t see how Jeter’s last two “average” years (which by the way, he did not win a gold glove in either of the last 2 years), invalidates this point.
[...] I can get on board with this: “Personally speaking, I don’t think Nike went far enough. Personally, I think they should … Confiscate every and all tapes of Game 6 of the 2009 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. I don’t care if they have to break into homes and erase every Tivo in North America. Get rid of that thing. Never happened. The Finals did NOT match up Orlando and Los Angeles. Those LeBron-Kobe muppets make perfect sense again.” [Joe Posnanski/Joe Blog] [...]
Simple question: have you ever heard anyone pronounce Xerox as “Eggszerox”?
Frankly, it isn’t embarrassing for Xavier, it’s embarrassing for anyone, especially sportscasters who screw it up.
“ASSUMING that everything really happened as the rumor mill tells us”
That’s a pretty huge assumption to make. Sounds like something really cheesy, but we’re talking about a guy who walked briskly off of the court after Game 6 and later explained that he wasn’t really into that whole sportsmanship bit, because he’s such a bad loser.
Still, the rumor mill surrounding someone like James can generate some real doozies in a short time. I’m sure that if he patted the kid on the shoulder for making a dunk over him, the reports would tell us how he “slapped him hard enough to put him in the local ICU for a night.”
I think we’ll all see it soon. But it’ll be packaged for the biggest possible monetary gain.
Just got back from Foot Locker. Nike also confiscated Adidas, Reebok, Converse, Vans, PF Flyer, and just in case, Timberland, Birkenstock, and even Fakenstock. That will *really* protect Nike’s clients.
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