Posts tagged LeBronJames at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Every Papa John's franchise in Northeast Ohio sold one-topping pizzas for 23 cents yesterday to atone for the "crybaby" t-shirts given away in Washington last week. And as you'd expect, it was a complete cluster. From the Columbus Dispatch:

The offer, intended to remedy a franchisee's insult to Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James (No. 23), resulted in closed stores, long lines and angry customers after stores became overwhelmed by the demand. Police were called to help control the crowds at some outlets.

"It's total chaos," said Ann Marie Buswell, 33, a social worker who got her pizza at the Hudson Avenue store after waiting an hour and a half.

If you think waiting an hour and a half is bad, consider that some people waited five hours for the free pie. Five freaking hours for a pizza that usually costs $12. But mind you, these people weren't just looking for free food; no sir, they were making a stand:

"I did it for the principle of it. The principle of it is he's not a crybaby and Papa John's should not have gotten into it," Jennie Moore, 54, of University Heights, said as she waited for a pepperoni pizza.

Good times all around in 2008 for Dwyane Wade!

The NBA announced the All-NBA teams tonight, and really, there wasn't anything shocking within all three squads chosen. Naturally, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul led all vote getters, with Mamba the only member unanimously chosen (although I'd love to know who was pounding the Haterade by picking Steve Nash and Tracy McGrady over Paul for the first team).

Rounding out the first team were second tier MVP candidates LeBron James and Kevin Garnett, neither of whom was a shock at the forward slots. Dwight Howard was named first team center, in the only reasonably close voting race with Amare Stoudemire. Personally, I give the nod to D-Ho, based on defense and the value of five rebounds a game over five points per.

In another of our continuing series, five things to keep an eye out for tonight in the Cavaliers-Celtics Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 2 this evening.

1. Swamp Thing Returns: I'm going to warn you right now. I'll record this game. And I'll watch it later without commercials so I can escape the seemingly never-ending torture of having the "Go Phone" commercial song in my head ("I love you till the end of time, I swear! I love you till the end of time!"). That will at least make it tolerable. But I can't watch this thing live. It's like watching paint dry. Even if the Big 3 go off and LeBron James has a spectacular night, it'll only be interesting in the fourth. You're looking at two teams that play terrific defense and are not shooting the ball well. Game 1 was like a root canal with Sam Cassell. I've watched D-League games with better precision. So forgive me if I don't subject myself to that again. This is, of course, a sad lie, because I'm a junkie and would watch Kevin Garnett play HORSE with Kige Ramsey. Still, I'm putting the same warning on this one. If you like offense, scoring, things like that? Agent Michael Scarn might be a better bet.

2. Return of the (Cliché Redacted): LeBron had a night much like Frank TV. Bizarre and unfortunate that most people wish they could erase from their minds. 2 for 18 shooting? 10 turnovers? What in God's name happened? Some people say he just had an off night. It happens. Others say that the Celtics defense smothered him. I tend to lean towards the former rather than the latter on instinct, but after rewatching the tape, in between vomiting, I noticed that the Celtics really did put together a great gameplan. Recognizing that LeBron would be the primary ball handler, they simply brought high perimeter commit defense, and sent man-help if he tried to drive to deny him. When they tried to use screens from the Cavs big men, the Celtics simply ignored the screener and rolled under and over to double James, always keeping him in front of them. Zydrunas Ilgauskus had a monster game for the Cavs, but he's better at a spot and catch shooter, instead of off the role or on the pop. This lead to missed shot or turnover after missed shot or turnover. So why didn't they try something different, like using LeBron as the screen, or rolling a guard off the screen? Well that's because ...

Let me start by throwing a nice big "allegedly" on this story, because honestly, we have no idea as to how true (or false) it really is. Now that that's done, Cleveland Scene tells the tale of LeBron James running up a huge tab at a swanky steak joint, and keeping the staff there until 3:45 in the morning -- only to leave an embarrassingly small tip in return. The particulars:

It went down like this: LeBron pulls up in his Mercedes outside XO. ... On this special occasion, the King decides to dine late. He keeps his group there until around 3:45 a.m. During this time the waiter obsequiously pours drinks and fetches anything else His Greatness needs.

The final bill comes to $800. By the feudal laws of decorum, which stipulate that the affluent should administer a 20 percent gratuity, staffers figured they'd be pocketing an extra $160. But when they fetched the autographed bill after His Heinousness bolted back to Akron, their expectation turned to disbelief, then anger.

LeBron stiffed them with a meager $10 tip

I can only think of a couple of reasons how or why LeBron might have done this. The story does mention that drinks were flowing at this particular dinner, so maybe LeBron had more than his share and meant to drop an extra zero or two at the end of the $10, but was simply too, uh, [tired] to do so.

Or perhaps (and this is pure speculation) LeBron has been getting hit for substantial losses at his in-home casino. If that's the case, then he probably needs to save as many pennies as he can, even if it's at the expense of the hard-working restaurant employes in the city of Cleveland.

Sam Cassell was called for a flagrant foul on Lebron James halfway through the second quarter of the Celtics' Game 1 win over the Cavs. At the time, when they showed the replay, it looked to me to be a flagrant because once LeBron got past Sam, Cassell grabbed James' shoulder to stop him from getting a shot up. Cassell thinks it was a pretty weak call, and that the NBA is protecting its superstars like never before.

Cassell, who broke into the league during the rough-and-tumble mid-1990s, said the NBA is protecting Cavaliers star LeBron James in a way it never did with Michael Jordan.

"Wow. It's just different right now. They gave me a flagrant-1 foul, and no way in the world was it a flagrant-1 foul. I'm going to call [NBA vice president] Stu [ Jackson] and see what he thinks about that. That's not a flagrant-1 foul at all. Back in the day, a flagrant-1 was bloodshed. Now, you can just grab somebody . . . It's the new NBA."

At first glance, Cassell's seems to be right, in that all he did was grab LeBron. But on the bloodshed part, he may have gotten it wrong. Because according to James, the play resulted in him receiving a cut to his upper lip.

''Want me to show you?'' he said to a Cavs PR representative who had asked (at my request) where he was hit on Boston Celtics guard Sam Cassell's flagrant foul Tuesday night.

James then revealed the cut that he received inside his mouth as he drove to the basket.

So is the NBA trying to cut down on the physical play more now than they did in the past? Absolutely. And with that in mind, should this have been called a flagrant foul? Yes, because Sam wasn't making a play on the ball, he was simply trying to ensure that James didn't get a shot off. Cassell's correct that the NBA is trying to protect it's stars more than they used to. And since he's aware of that, he shouldn't be surprised when grabbing a player from behind results in a flagrant foul call.

Here's the latest ad from Nike (via TrueHoop, BDL, Dime, etc.) featuring the many witnesses of LeBron James. LeBron himself must have been too busy for the shoot, as he's nowhere to be found, except for in some very Gilbert Arenas-like illustrations. Check it out.

I'm 50-50 on this one. It's kind of cool to have folks that appear to know the King personally talk about him, but at the same time, they really don't seem to be saying much. (Except for the dude behind the Lebron mask who says "I would cross you up and dunk in your mouth" -- that was phenomenal.) But I think I'd prefer to see James himself in some kind of action instead, or at the very least, throwing down dunks dressed as famous historical figures.

There's no question that Game 1 of the Cavaliers-Celtics series was painful to watch. I mean, how many times will you see LeBron James, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen combine for just 16 points in an entire game? The only one that was on last night was Kevin Garnett (28 points), but that was mainly due to Cleveland's bad defense, especially on the last couple of possessions. Take a look at the last two times KG scored -- first to tie the game then to give his team the lead -- and then we'll discuss.

On the first play, that was definitely a nice, clutch 20-footer from Garnett. But why in the world did Joe Smith stay and double Ray Allen off of the pick and roll, when Ray hadn't scored a single point all night? Wouldn't it have made more sense to let Allen go, and get back on KG? Now LeBron started to rotate over, but decided he didn't want to leave Pierce alone at the three-point line, which is understandable. I just don't get the decision to leave the one guy who has been scoring consistently all night, just to double someone who's gone scoreless to that point in the game.

Every now and again there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the L. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

I've long suspected that the Cavaliers were the NBA's dirty little secret, as if the league appreciated casual fans buying into the LeBron James marketing machine but hoped they wouldn't actually bother to watch his team play. It's best to enjoy LBJ's career via YouTube clips and Nike commercials, because actually watching the Cavs play an entire game is often as exciting as watching paint dry and/or soccer.

Last night's Game 1 between the Celtics and Cavs was worse than usual as LBJ finished with just 12 points, scoring all but four at the free throw line while going a dreadful 2-18 from the field. As a team the Cavs shot 30.7% yet still managed to lose by only four as Boston's Big Three turned into a Big One-Third.

Paul Pierce scored just four points on 2-14 shooting, which is somewhat excusable if you subscribe to the notion that he wore himself out containing LeBron on the other end. But Ray Allen's night is just plain odd: he went scoreless in 37 minutes after missing all four of his shots. I know Kevin Garnett (28 points, 13-22 FG) was feeling it, but are you telling me that Doc Rivers can't call a single play in the fourth quarter that gets Allen an open look? It's just boggling.

We've known for a few days now that Kobe Bryant was going to receive the MVP award. What we didn't know, however, was how the voting was going to break down. It's been widely speculated that this was a very close two-man race between Kobe and Chris Paul, but as it turned out, it really was no contest. Take a look at how the voting shook out, and you'll see that Kobe was the clear cut choice.

Kobe's first place vote margin over Chris Paul was a whopping 54 votes. And while Kobe did receive a couple of fourth place votes, no one decided to pull a Tom Ziller and leave Bryant off of their ballot completely. (Oh come on, I kid the vacationing one!)

The argument will rage on (especially in New Orleans) as to whether Paul deserved more consideration in light of his amazing season, and the fact is, we know that the award itself is more than a little flawed. But it's clear that the voters believed that this was Kobe's year, hands down. And besides, the way Paul has been playing, it appears that he'll have many more chances to take home his own piece of MVP hardware.

I think that we, generally speaking for basketball fans, don't believe that the Cavs can beat the Celtics. Which is weird, because Cleveland has LeBron James. And the Celtics just squeaked by the Hawks. Or maybe we don't think that. But Las Vegas -- who is generally fairly close to the public opinion -- sure does, staking the Celtics a whopping 9.5 points tonight (BoDog).

I find this odd. LeBron went off on the Celtics throughout the regular season, averaging 32.3 points, 9.7 assists and 7.0 rebounds. Of course, you could probably argue that LeBron went off against everyone. You could also argue that when LeBron averages 41% from the floor, not only is he trying to hard but he's not being efficient and that could lead to blowouts by Boston. Then you could go on to point out that I'm running the live blog, so a blow out is already a mortal lock (0-3 on close games if you're scoring at home.)

Still, we're talking about the best player in the Eastern Conference and the future of basketball against three old dudes trying to get some rings in the EC Semis. Besides, the worst case is you just swing by and type "BOOBIE" a bunch of times.

In another of our continuing series, five things to keep an eye out for tonight in the Cav-Celtics Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 1 this evening.

1. Three On One: Let's not kid ourselves. You're not tuning in to watch Kendrick Perkins, or Anderson Varejao, or Wally Szczerbiak. You want to see Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett versus LeBron James. And typically, a three-on-one superstar match would be lopsided. But as evidenced by the Atlanta series, Boston is not firing on all cylinders right now, and Paul Pierce, who is supposed to be the offensive juggernaut for the Celtics, has been "eh." Conversely, LeBron is averaging a lot of points but still hasn't had a game where you pile on the superlatives. The Celtics are superb at home, but the Cavs are playing a bit better than the Hawks. Still, with Rajon Rondo covering West and Gibson, LeBron is going to have to pull one of his Kingly acts to get the win tonight.

2. West. No, the Other West: Delonte West was huge for the Cavs in Round 1. West had 10 points and 5 assists per game against the Wizards. He has to continue that against the Celtics. The frontcourt is where the battle will be fought, but the backcourt is where it will it will be won. If Rondo and Allen limit the Cavaliers perimeter shooters and keep West from producing baskets, the Celtics can make quick work of them, LeBron or no LeBron.

FanHouse's Round Two previews will give you the critical points of every series, so you can talk to your friends like you've been following every team in the Association all season long. Or know what the hell an Ilgauskus is.

Biggest Reason You Should Watch: LeBron James versus Kevin Garnett. No, the two don't guard each other, but the fact is that, for all intents and purposes, LeBron is the Cavs' offense and KG is the Celtics' defense. Oh, and the two teams split their four games this season, with each winning their two at home. We saw how that went for Boston in the first round, and if this thing somehow goes seven, I highly doubt LeBron allows his team to get dropped by 30-something in the deciding game.

Cleveland Can Win If: LeBron can dominate a road game and steal one in Boston. As good as the Celtics were in the regular season, something isn't right with this team yet in the playoffs if they're dropping three games on the road to a 37-regular-season-win Hawks team.

Boston Can Win If: They can hold LeBron to reasonable numbers -- say, less than 30 points per game -- and don't let Cleveland's outside shooters get loose. Delonte West and Daniel Gibson (I'm so over that "Boobie" thing) killed the Wizards in round one, so if the Celtics stay at home on those guys they should be in good shape.

Video Clip to Get You Pumped: All I'm saying is, if LeBron hits from distance like this, Boston has absolutely no chance.

In another of our continuing series, five things to keep an eye out for tonight in the Magic-Pistons epic game this afternoon.

1. Insert Kryptonite Reference Here: The one thing the Magic had to count on in this series was Dwight Howard. They can probably hang if Hedo Turkoglu or Rashard Lewis have off games and are kept out of the penetration. They can manage if the three pointers aren't falling, though it would be hard. But Howard having a bad game? Disaster. Utter disaster. The scheme, the offense, the energy, the soul of this Magic team is centered around Howard. I know it, you know it, and the Pistons sure know it. They harassed and knocked Howard into 12 points and 8 boards. That just won't cut it in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. If Howard doesn't respond in a big way tonight, the Magic are going home in a hole.

2. Excuse Me, Do You Have Any Tape? 'Cause I'm Ripped: Rip Hamilton is matched up with Maurice Evans. That is good for the Pistons, bad for the Magic. Hamilton's ability to constrain the perimeter shooting and get hot on his own is of vital use to the Pistons in this series. Chauncey Billups or Rasheed Wallace will have a bad game, but rarely at the same time. The Pistons need Hamilton to anchor the scoring with his versatility. Granted, the Pistons don't have to score that much with their defense as good as it is, but the Pistons can't afford a dry spell to give the Magic life. The Pistons want to finish this one quick and brutal. Hamilton leading all scorers can do that.

You wanna know how you stop a rogue Papa John's pizza franchise from sullying the good name of LeBron James? You start a mediocre Facebook group, that's what you do (yup, 121 fans of the Cleveland Cavs will never eat the Papa again -- what a strong stand). Or you could start an inaccurate and rudimentary website ("Kiss the Ring" doesn't necessarily apply to Bron just quite yet, you dedicated 186 pizza haters) dedicated to snuffing out disrespecting pizza joints.

But hate not on the quality of Cleveland's protest. It has reached the dough stuffed ears of Mr. Papa John himself, in Kentucky, and corporate has responded, offering to make it up to all the Cleveland fans who were so wronged by this one Washington D.C. version of the pizza store.

To apologize, Papa John's will sell Cleveland residents a large, one-topping pizza for 23 cents on Thursday. The 23 is an homage to James' jersey number. The company also will donate $10,000 to the Cavaliers Youth Fund.

Woo! Charities! Cheap pizza! Homage! It's almost enough to get me worked up into the kind of frenzy that inspires shots of garlic sauce before I go back to class.

Okay, not really. I actually think that Cleveland fans should have recruited Domino's or Pizza Hut to respond and am kind of surprised they didn't call the King and lock up the free marketing while it was available. Of course, the geniuses that inspired the Noid and Queen Latifah as spokepeople are probably no longer around, so you can't expect too much. Fortunately for us, the silliness around the Cavs-Wizards series is just about over.

After being eliminated from the playoffs by LeBron James and the Cavaliers for the third straight season, it appears that the Wizards' management just can't get enough, as they're likely to bring their version of the "Big Three" back for another season.

... Caron Butler sounded certain this afternoon, after his exit meeting with Coach Eddie Jordan at Verizon Center, that Washington's Big Three would stay together and try to advance past the first round for the first time in four years.

The thinking is the Wizards' all-stars will be healthier, their youngsters will add muscle and maturity and Grunfeld will find a key acquisition to help Eddie Jordan's cause.

It's not a sexy strategy. It's certainly not going to shake up the league. But in the NBA today, where continuity has helped keep San Antonio, Detroit and Utah alive, it works.

I know that the Wizards feel like they were close to beating Cleveland this year, and that in their minds, if they had a healthy Gilbert Arenas for the entire series (or maybe were without him for all six games) they might have been able to win it. The reality is though, the team's style is simply not geared towards winning playoff games in the NBA.

Continuity isn't the only thing that keeps teams like San Antonio and Detroit in the playoff hunt every year. The fact that those teams play disciplined, defense-oriented team basketball is why they're successful. And after watching the Wizards take way too many poor shots (like three-pointers with 23 seconds remaining on the shot clock) and refuse to defend consistently, it's clear that they'll need a lot more than just a healthy "Big Three" to ever get out of the first round.