Nike’s Censorship: Will it work?

By: Matt

LeBron James has been the most famous and noted player in the NBA since the day he was drafted, and possibly even before then. James, once a high school kid with tremendous talent, has lived up to his pre-draft hype, becoming one of the best players in basketball. The reigning MVP has become a media darling, any time he says the word 2010 an alarm goes off in sports news stations around the country, puppets were made in his honor and he has his own line of shoes. James can do no wrong; he talks about leaving his team in a free agency two years away, argues with future Hall of Famer Charles Barkley about the appropriateness of his actions, and now is un-prohibited from getting posterized in public. At a skills academy hosted by King James in Akron Ohio this Monday, basketball Jesus himself got dunked on, by Jordan Crawford, a college guard from Xavier. Nike, to prevent potential damage to James’ reputation as the greatest athlete in basketball, confiscated all tapes of the dunk and has prevented the footage from being seen. While Nike has successfully prevented the world from seeing James get dunked on, will their China-esque censorship prevent the star from being humiliated? It is hard to imagine that the tape would be even remotely comparable to a classic Shawn Bradley posterization video. Kobe has been dunked on before, Shaq flopped against Dwight Howard, Michael Jordan whiffed a dunk in an All-Star game, but somehow all of these star’s reputations were preserved without Nike being there to prevent the world from seeing their less-than-shining moments. It is hardly unfair to say that LeBron James’ reputation and marketability would be completely unaffected by allowing the world to see the video. What Nike has accomplished with their disappearing act is outrage the basketball loving public. The public’s imagination likely has created a much worse image of James being dunked on than the true event was, and now the whole world is talking about one minor incident in a skills academy that counts for nothing in the Basketball world. Earlier today Jordan Crawford received a segment on Sports Center, countless articles have been written, and now instead of blowing over quickly, the censorship incident has become a black mark on LeBron’s permanent record. Congratulations Nike, I hope you accomplished what you set out to do.