LeBron James is still chasing Kobe Bryant for the title of “Best Player in the NBA.” Not only does Kobe have the rings but his game is evolved beyond LeBron’s. That doesn’t mean The King won’t try to match the Mamba highlight for highlight. Kobe hit an incredible over the backboard shot against the Thunder in November. On Wednesday night LeBron answered with a behind the backboard shot of his own.

Enjoy it while you can Cleveland. This could be your last season with the King in Cavs gear.

LeBron James has everything a 25-year-old on his way to being a billionaire could want except for a Rolls-Royce Phantom so Shaquille O’Neal laced him with one for his birthday. The King then treated himself to a birthday party at Barroom in Cleveland. It didn’t reach Eric Dickerson party status but it looks like LBJ and the fam had a good time. There was music so that means LeBron had to show off his best dance moves. Or worst dance moves. It depends on your interpretation.

Video via Larry Brown Sports:

Sucks for Tiger Woods. He could’ve met some women for some more transgressions if the transgressions we now know about hadn’t screwed up his marriage and chased off sponsors.

LeBron James’ Birthday Party: Where Dancing is Acceptable [Larry Brown Sports]

LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers visited the Knicks on Friday, bringing out the stars to the Garden. Jay-Z, Chris Rock, CC Sabathia, and Alex Rodriguez were all there to watch the King. After the game LeBron said what up to Jay and CC but it was A-Rod that seemed like he wanted to say hello to LeBron the most.

Everybody that shook LeBron’s hand before A-Rod approached James with confidence. Alex looked like a school girl meeting a Jonas brother. The video would obviously show this better but I don’t have the video.

The Boston Celtics took down King James, Shaq, and the rest of the Cavaliers 95-89 on opening night in Cleveland. The game showed that the Cavs are in the same situation they were in last year. LeBron needs a running mate. A guy with some size that can create his own shot and put pressure on the defense, and that can match-up with athletic 3-4s. Delonte West, Mo Williams, and Boobie Gibson are too small. Jamario Moon and Anthony Parker aren’t good enough.

The good news from Cleveland’s first game is that LeBron James picked up where he left off defensively. He blocked four shots including chasing down Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen and pinning their ish to the backboard.

LeBron’s gonna put up MVP type numbers because that’s what he does but he’s not putting up a championship banner until he gets some real help.

LeBron James joined Jay Leno for Ten@Ten on NBC’s desperate attempt to save money and get ratings. At least they’re getting one of their goals accomplished. We learned from the ten questions that LeBron thinks Ray Allen is a better shooter than Steve Nash and Plaxico Burress, and that the King will not do ads in tiny underwear.

LeBron has nothing against appearing in his boxers for an ad like he does in the new Nike Pro Combat spot.

I’ll take Adrian Peterson’s Nike Alter Ego commercial over LeBron’s Nike Pro Combat, and I’ll Wise LeBron’s poem over both of them.

LeBron James joined Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for interview but the visit turned out to be a recruiting trip. Stewart let King James know New York has a basketball team called the Knickerbockers, and then tried to entice LeBron to leave Cleveland with some gifts.

An “I Love NY” coffee mug, some Shake Shack, and a tyrannosaurus rex vertebrae.. Seeing how Cleveland has nothing to offer I’d have to say New York is overpaying.

A real tape of Jordan Crawford dunking on LeBron James made it’s way to TMZ and another, cleaner version can be found here. So after everybody from the mainstream media to fellow athletes called for LeBron to release the tape, it’s a couple of guys with camera phones that put the King on blast.

After the huge build-up there was no way the video could live up to the hype.. And it doesn’t. Yeah we can see SOMEBODY getting dunked on but it’s not a “Oh Shit! We Better Hide the Tapes” type of dunk. Nike and LeBron out thought themselves on this one. If they had released the video when it happened we wouldn’t care now. Instead, this thing has a few days of life left.

Here’s the first leak of LeBron James getting dunked on via TMZ:

LeBron James got dunked on by Jordan Crawford at the LeBron James Skills Academy and Nike confiscated the video tape. Everybody knows about that. We should give up hoping the video will surface one day because the Nike people destroyed those tapes right after taking them from the cameramen.

Whether Nike has the tapes, or Conan O’Brien got his copy back, I spoke to a number of athletes about LeBron James releasing the video. The votes are heavy in one direction, but Kurt Warner makes the best case.

The majority opinion from my small sample size is for LeBron to do what he wants with the tape. It says something about the respect athletes have for James, but it also shows how powerful Nike is. Most of the people I talked to didn’t want to get on the bad side of LBJ or Nike, and Tim Tebow told me saying Release the tape LeBron is “political suicide.” There go Kurt Warner’s and Jared Allen’s political aspirations.

When Nike confiscated the tapes of Jordan Crawford dunking on LeBron James they made themselves and the man they were trying to protect look weak and overly sensitive. This joke of a scandal has extended beyond the sports world, and now Conan O’Brien is taking shots at the King on The Tonight Show.

That’s the closest we’re getting to seeing the tape. Phil Knight and his cronies burned the real tapes the same day they were confiscated.

Conan O’Brien found the LeBron Nike Tape, Video [NESW Sports]

LeBron James got dunked on by sophomore Jordan Crawford from Xavier, but the video will probably never see the light of day. Nike black suits snatched all the tapes at the LeBron James Skills Academy that featured the now legendary dunk. Nike should go ahead and release the video because the fallout from TapeGate has been worse than anything we would’ve seen. In the meantime we’ll have to settle for a “LeBron James Gets Dunked On” compilation video.

The big winner in all of this is Jordan Crawford. We should be seeing him interviewed any minute now and if nothing else, he’ll always be the guy that dunked on LeBron and nobody saw it.

Lebron getting dunked on compilation video [Mason 360]