Jeff Goodman first reported this yesterday afternoon, and it’s taken off like wildfire across the web so we felt obligated to show some love to Xavier sophomore Jordan Crawford for throwing down a TWO-hander over King James during Monday night’s games at the Lebron James Skills Academy. Nike, the camp sponsor and LBJ overlord, immediately confiscated tapes from the two videographers in the building who, coincidentally, were the only people in the building who could have shown the outside world what happened there. Like Elie Wiesel in “Night,” (oh yes, we went there) Ryan Miller and his yet-unnamed companion are left to tale the tale through the fading lenses of eyewitness accounts. Shouldn’t Nike, the progenitor of the all things buzzworthy and masters at managing viral marketing, have understood that confiscating these tapes would end up causing more of an outcry and commotion than simply allowing them to surface on Youtube? We’re not sure that Phil Knight would be very proud of Nike senior director Lynn Merritt these days (she of the tape stealing). For what it’s worth, Goodman kept pressing on this so-called policy that Nike has allowing them to steal the tapes, but surprise, they were unable to produce anything written to support said policy.
Goodman didn’t see it, but he did interview Crawford afterwards, who had this to say:
“I was on the right wing and went down the middle. I got past Danny Green and LeBron was waiting under the basket,” Crawford said. “I don’t think he thought I was going to dunk it, so he jumped late. It was two-handed.” Crawford said he didn’t even fully realize what he had done until afterward. “Not during the game, but I was geeked afterwards about it,” Crawford said. “Everyone was talking about it.”
Luckily, Gary Parrish has unearthed a photo that Nike is allegedly focus grouping for its next campaign:
