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.