Nike Needs to Release Tapes Showing LeBron Being Dunked On

I'll admit I'm not a big fan of being embarrassed on the basketball court. I'd rather drop a no-look pass than have someone break my ankles. I'm partial to hitting a contested 3-pointer rather than having one dropped in my eye.

But I'm a white 22 year old whose bones usually ache like a 50 year old. I'm slightly overweight and hover below six feet. As much as I may hate it, I'm accustomed to being on the wrong end of a basketball highlight.

Hundreds of embarrassing moments have taught me one thing. There is no whining in basketball. Never make excuses. Shrug it off. Keep playing.

LeBron James could learn a lot from that advice.

To be fair, the blame for Nikegate shouldn't fall squarely on LeBron's shoulders. I doubt LeBron even cares about the dunk Xavier guard Jordan Crawford threw down on him. But that's the perception he's left with after Nike - LeBron's shoe company - confiscated two tapes that caught the dunk.

The only entities making a big deal out of this mess are Nike and ESPN. Fans don't care. LeBron doesn't care. Even Crawford seemed nonchalant during his five-minute interview on ESPN's First Take.

The World Wide Leader's obsession over The Dunk is equally annoying and understandable. Nike's reaction, however, was ridiculous.

Nikegate created the very media storm the shoe company desperately tried to avoid. They feared the clip that showed their golden boy in a less-than-positive light would hurt sales. It's one of the dumbest public relations moves I can remember. So what if the tape gets out? A dunk is a dunk. It's basketball. It happens. LeBron understands the risk of being on the wrong end of a highlight every time he takes the court, even if it's only a meaningless pickup game in July. It makes ESPN's top 10 plays for one night, and it's forgotten the next morning.

The clip would've undoubtedly blown up on YouTube, sure. But does anyone seriously think Crawford would score more than two points against LeBron in a one-on-one game to 12? Does being on the wrong side of a poster once overshadow the hundreds of times LeBron's posterized his opponent? Does one play threaten to make LeBron's demand less next year when he becomes a free agent?

No one had ever heard of Crawford before his slam. No one would've remembered him one week later. The kid was a nice player in his only season at Xavier, averaging 9.7 points per game in 2007-08. But that's been the lone highlight of his basketball career. He's far from being a legitimate NBA prospect. At Crawford's age, LeBron was averaging a shade more than 27/7/7 with the Cavs and was well on his way to dominating the NBA.

The two are a stratosphere apart on the basketball landscape, as different as Keystone and Sam Adams. But Nike is giving the opposite impression to the public.

Nikegate is worse than being dunked on. It makes it look like LeBron needs to be babied and coddled. He comes off as a poor sport, a sore loser. And that's more damaging than anything Crawford accomplished with one trip to the rim.

Because, if I've learned anything, there is no whining in basketball.