Originally published in SLAM 132
Forget what you heard. Forget what you read. Forget what you saw.
What really happened at James A. Rhodes Arena on July 6th? The official story is that Xavier junior-to-be Jordan Crawford dunked on LeBron James in a pick-up game. It all sounded plausible enough. The dunk was caught on video, but the tapes were immediately confiscated by Nike officials. That’s OK. There were witnesses. There always are, right?
But what happened afterward? Why did it take 16 days for the video to get out? Try this on for size: The dunk happened, but not like everyone said. It was brutal. Two hands. From the free-throw line. Right in LeBron’s grill. Might have even shattered the backboard.
So, damage control. Right away, the arena got locked down. You know those flashy things in Men In Black? Nike developed them in the Innovation Kitchen. Tested ’em on Joe Dumars right before the ’03 Draft. Oops. Anyway, memories erased, they created new ones. W + K wrote the script. The rest was easy. Find a LeBron stand-in, re-stage the game, get some shaky footage of a lesser dunk. Enlist TMZ to leak it. Easy.
The truth might be out there, but even Mulder and Scully ain’t finding it.
