And he shall be LeBron, and he shall be a petty man...

Look, I like LeBron James. I'm a fan of both LeBron the player and (what we know of) the person. He is a fierce, talented competitor, and comes across as genuine in interviews both on and off the court. King James has also done a masterful job at handling the hype that has surrounded him since he was in early high school. Heavy has hung the head of those crowned the next Jordan, and only LeBron (maybe Kobe to a lesser extent) has been able to withstand the pressure. He's generally handled his celebrity with aplomb, and should be commended for it.

But occasionally we're reminded that LJ is still a 24 year old, prone to all the brash outbursts of emotion that aren't uncommon to young men early in their careers. Our first glimpse was in the Eastern Conference finals when he stormed off the floor without shaking the hand of Dwight Howard, his USA Basketball Olympic teammate, or the rest of the Magic. We chalked that up to fire and intensity.

Then came the dunk. Word first trickled out into the blogosphere that James had been dunked on during a pickup session during his LeBron James Skills Academy that he hosts in Akron for the top highschool and college players in the country. My first thought: Who cares? People dunk, especially in pickup games where defense is lax.

Then we got a name: Jordan Crawford. I'm familiar with Jordan Crawford--because his brother, Joe, played four years for UK, I watched several of Jordan's games his freshman season at Indiana. He was solid(torched the boys in blue), but not what you might call a physical specimen. I was still not particularly impressed by the news of the dunk, but thought that it was a little interesting.

Finally, we learned there was no video. None. Well, video existed but it had been confiscated by Nike reps at the behest of the King. The dunk immediately became legendary. Sportscenter covered the story. FoxSports and CBS Sportsline both ran articles about it. Once news leaked that the video was taken the dunk became the nastiest thing outside of a Panama City Beach hot tub.

In my head(and yours too) this dunk was just absolutely sick. Two-handed-junk-in-face-get-a-good-look-son-mouth-0pen-spit-flying-embarrass-your-family-my-phallus-is-bigger-than-yours-sir dunk. Just absolutely badass. And everyone was dying to see it. Only LeBron had his feeligns hurt, and wouldn't let anyone see.

He got beat, took his ball and went home.

Only the world wouldn't let him. The story wouldn't die for almost three weeks. Crawford gave interviews. ESPN2 filled 8 hours of programming discussing it. And eventually it got big enough that James and Nike came off the footage.

When I got video in email I thought: I cannot wait to see this dunk. I clicked the link, excited for a basketball revolution.

Meh.

I saw what you saw. A fairly pedestrian dunk on a busted inbounds play. Crawford doesn't even appear to be LeBron's responsibility. LJ just gets there late.

And in trying to keep himself from being embarrassed publicly, James has made himself look petty and childish.

THAT was the dunk? That? Really? Nike and LJ would have been much better served to just let the sophomore from Xavier have his day. Given our current media landscape it would have been a story for about 8 hours. Now? The dunk is legendary for all the wrong reasons.

This One's For Pops

Nickel-Dimer [nik-uhl dahym-er]
-adjective

1. Basketball. Descriptor for an unwarranted foul. Popularized by college basketball broadcaster Bill Raftery.

2. General Vagrancy. Term used to denote an extremely attractive woman with an unattractive friend.

Before I begin I owe no small thanks to several folks who helped get this tiny, tiny blog off the ground. First off is my good friend Kiloh(not his actual name), who pushed me to find some way to do what I enjoy doing, which is writing. Thanks for the nudge in the right direction. Second is Drano(actual name) who, after four days of Vegas sleep and having watched 40 hours of basketball over a long weekend, openly remarked "look at the little nickel-dimer" as an attractive woman and her unattractive friend passed us on the casino floor at Planet Hollywood. This blog derives its name from that unplanned moment of genius(well, genius mixed with assholery), and for that I am grateful.

This inaugural post of TND, however, is dedicated to someone else...a man I never met.

I am a St. Louis Cardinal fan and Kentucky Wildcat fan by birthright--along with my brother, I am the third generation of fans on both my maternal and paternal side. Due to this lineage I have been able to see both of my favorite teams win Championships, something that I realize not every fan gets to experience. I am grateful for this rooting lineage, and thus the initial post is dedicated to my maternal grandfather, who passed away 6 years previous to my birth. A man I'm sure I would have called "Pops."

Pops was a die-hard fan of both my teams--he used to sit and keep score of UK basketball games while listening to Cawood Ledford on the radio, then keep the scorecard and review them year to year. Like me, he loved the statistics around the game as much as the game itself, which is presumably how he fell in love with baseball and the Cardinals. He was a man desperate for sons, and the fates gave him three daughters whom he adored.

Several years ago I came across a letter he had written to his mother during WWII. I was very surprised to learn that his writing voice and style was almost exactly like my own. Pops loved to entertain, and that is the ultimately the purpose of this blog--to entertain those who happen to stop by for a bit. That's what we're going to be about, and hopefully in the most ridiculously sophomoric way possibe. We'll hopefully have some friends stop by and lend their thoughts as well, and I'll try to keep the juvenile humor to a maximum.

So this one's for you, Pops. I hope the rest of the posts make you proud.

Sorry about the dick jokes.