Two bits of news reminded me of a story I wrote last summer for PopMatters. In the first, CBS Sports reported that, after Xavier’s Jordan Crawford threw down an ostensibly monstrous dunk on LeBron James, Nike operatives confiscated all videotapes of the event. Predictably, the Internet uproar over this has reflected far more poorly on James than even the worst dunk could have.
Even more predictable is the fact that James would fuss over his image. James is, by all accounts, a supremely decent person and a positively extraterrestrial talent, but, as I wrote in “LeBron James and the Beat Book,” which surveyed the surprising number of books about LeBron James, he’s also “the most hands-on athlete today—remember, he created his own sports marketing agency.”
Which brings us to the second piece of news: Buzz Bissinger just co-wrote Shooting Stars, a new book with (and about) LeBron. Do you suppose it will have any Friday Night Lights-level revelations?
Craig Fehrman 