Do Not Witness - Russakoff Rules - Comcast.net Sports

See the kid on the left? That's 6-foot-4 Xavier guard Jordan Crawford. (He transferred from Indiana.) Crawford threw down a two-handed dunk on the head of King James at the Lebron James Skills Academy in Ohio.

The dunk was reportedly so nasty that no one at the camp could talk about anything else. And ... it was caught on video tape.

But you won't see it. None of us will.

That's because, as CBSSports.com's Lance Parrish reports, James' Nike rep confiscated all video evidence.

Ryan Miller was one of the cameramen at the camp and spoke to CBSSports.com about the incident.

"[Nike Basketball Senior Director Lynn Merritt] just said, 'We have to take your tape,'" Miller said. "They took it from other guys, too."

Of course, the camp has no policy against filming ... and of course, Miller was filming all day without incident. That is, until LeBron got junked by a college kid...

"LeBron called Lynn over and told him something," Miller said. "That's how I knew his name was Lynn. LeBron said, 'Hey, Lynn. Come here.'"

Minutes later, Miller said Merritt demanded his tape.

"There's nothing I can think of besides LeBron just not wanting it online," Miller said. "It's a good story to tell people, I guess. But then again, I'm kind of pissed. I lost my tape."

Not for nothing, but if you were the greatest basketball player in the world, would you be so Gestapo over a kid from Xavier dunking on you? I mean, it's basketball. It happens.

King James didn't want his beheading to show up on YouTube ... but didn't he have to know that confiscating a tape would make him look 1,000 times worse than any dunk ever could?

The whole incident makes LeBron look petty and insecure.

Come on, Bron. If we wanted to "witness" our supposed basketball King acting like a petulant child, we would have given Kobe the throne.

Your Feedback What do you think of LeBron confiscating the video tape? Does he have the right to do it? Is it a suave move for his image? Sound off here.

Email me at russakoffrules@comcast.net; follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/russakoffrules.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.




Message Edited by Lee_Russakoff on 07-08-2009 02:02 PM