Last Friday John Mayer played the Cleveland-area Blossom Music Center. For the encore, he hit the stage wearing a Cleveland Cavaliers jersey.

Mayer said while wearing the jersey, “Our last show of this tour (September 11 in Miami) I’m going to come out on stage wearing this in Miami.”

Cool! One small detail though. The show isn’t in Miami. Read more…

Lakers Owner Jerry Buss to the ASSOCIATED PRESS this week:

(Okay, you can stay)

“Some time ago, talking to some people, they wanted a bonus if the Lakers made the playoffs. I said, `Bonus? If we don’t make the playoffs, you don’t work here anymore.”’

Buss also opined on the derision borne of LeBron James‘ recent decision:

Given the devastating affect James’ decision had on the team and the city, Buss had “mixed emotions” about James’ departure and felt he “let down a lot of people and it seemed kind of sad.”

More snips: Read more…

The LeBron James self-immolation parade continues this week as he’s back with more third person, revisionist wisdom in an interview with GQ magazine.

(Pinata endorsement part of the plan?)

Here’s some samples of the remarks James recently made to GQ writer J.R. Moehringer:

“It’s not far, but it is far. And Clevelanders, because they were the bigger-city kids when we were growing up, looked down on us.… So we didn’t actually like Cleveland. We hated Cleveland growing up. There’s a lot of people in Cleveland we still hate to this day.”

Despite those comments, James also curiously claimed to Moehringer that he’d consider one day returning to the Cavs:

“If there was an opportunity for me to return and those fans welcome me back, that’d be a great story.”

Somehow I think that story though won’t be authored by current Cavs owner Dan Gilbert. James, once again speaking in third person: Read more…

Monday Lebron James and his baby mama, “sidekick” Savannah Brinson, were spotted at the Cleveland-area amusement park Cedar Point. (Sandusky, OH)

(Follow Brooks on Twitter for daily, real-time updates.)

While at the park, James made a grave miscalculation.

In front of dozens of parkgoers, James decided to take his talents to Cedar Point’s basketball shooting games.

Here he bricks a couple shots and is heckled by onlookers (video angle corrected after :21):
Read more…

Harper’s Bazaar has an interview with the mother of LeBron James‘ two children, Savannah Brinson. Brinson, who is not married to James, seems like a sweet, naive woman. Exactly how you would picture her personality.

The interview is mostly fluff and would’ve gone on without incident had baby daddy not gotten in on the act.

Brinson on James: “I just love him so much. We’re soul mates.”

James on Brinson: “A person like myself always needs a great sidekick and a person you can rely on no matter the circumstances. And she’s that. She’s got my back, and I love her for that.”

Sidekick?

On the subject of marriage, Brinson quite obviously is unhappy with her arrangement as a glorified babysitter: Read more…

The usual sniping rhetoric continues between the NBA owners and players as the July 2011 expiration of the league’s labor agreement looms. As always, negotiations will go down to the final few hours and we’ll probably end up with some manner of lockout.

(Why is he smiling? Read on)

How long the owners shut down the league will depend on the financial desperation of individual players. Because of the typical, well-chronicled monetary mismanagement of the rank and file NBA player, the owners figure to have extraordinary leverage in whatever labor agreement ends up being struck.

It’s that enormous hammer that reportedly may create an unprecedented demand by the owners of the players.

It’s a given that NBA owners will try to limit the length and breadth of guaranteed NBA player contracts in the future. But what many don’t know is that owners want to apply those future standards to player contracts already in place.

In other words, the contracts that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh just signed - along with the pre-existing deals of all other NBA superstars - would essentially be rendered null and void if the owners get their way in the new collective bargaining agreement. Read more…

Last week ESPN pulled a story from its internet website server written by staff reporter Arash Markazi that chronicled a night out in Vegas with LeBron James and his entourage.

ESPN Editor-in-Chief Rob King later explained that the story was spiked because, “Arash did not properly identify himself as a reporter or clearly state his intentions to write a story.”

The facts of the story, which Markazi stood behind, were never disputed by ESPN or James.

On Nov. 8, 1997, Eric Sondheimer of the LOS ANGELES TIMES reported on a controversy involving the sports editor of the Notre Dame (Sherman Oaks, CA) High School student newspaper. (The Times story can now be found archived in the newspaper’s “Freedom of Speech” collection.)

When Notre Dame High’s top-ranked football team lost back-to-back games last month, the sports editor of the school newspaper decided to write a commentary examining the Knights’ future. The team could be headed for difficult times, he argued, when it moves to a tougher league next year.

The story was never published.

The school newspaper advisor, Helen Chen, said she made the decision to hold the story after pressure from Principal Stephanie Connelly and football Coach Kevin Rooney, who said it would have hurt team morale after two straight losses.

“They wanted us to wait until the football season ended,” Chen said. “It was really hard for us. They’re [the students] supposed to be learning what true journalism is about.”

Rooney said the story, written by Notre Dame student Arash Markazi, was completely accurate but he did not like its timing.

“I felt it would be in the best interest of the school not to print it,” Rooney said.

Sound familiar?

Markazi was quoted in the ‘97 L.A. Times story:

“I worked hard on the story and before we went to press, they gave a copy to Connelly and Rooney, and they didn’t like it very much. Most of the players on the team read my column and it might have affected their confidence next year going to Division I.”

Newspaper editor Chen said she pulled the story, “out of respect for (Coach) Rooney. My concern (though) is if there’s some kind of major controversy, we’re going to be told we can’t do a story.”

So what exactly did Markazi, who was a sophomore at Notre Dame High at the time, write about the football team that caused such “major controversy“?

I made some calls this morning here in Los Angeles and found out. Read more…

The real reason ESPN spiked the LeBron James-Vegas story by ESPN reporter Arash Markazi had nothing to do with anything Markazi wrote about James last weekend.

(ESPN didn’t directly authenticate Jones video before airing it)

Last April, in a span of less than a week, ESPN repeatedly reported on two stories infinitely more embarrassing to high profile sports figures. But there’s one key difference between those two ESPN-aired stories and the LeBron-Vegas piece that was pulled.  A difference which explains why ESPN was so quick to axe Markazi’s work.

One of those embarrassing stories ESPN was willing to cover involved a drunk Jerry Jones being secretly videotaped at a bar by a person who, to this day, was never identified. The other story involved private photos of Josh Hamilton taken at a bar that were never intended for media dissemination. Read more…

Stuart Scott recently conducted a chat on ESPN.com in which he discussed his feelings about LeBron James and the role ESPN played in the NBA player’s move from Cleveland to Miami.

I excerpted a selection of Scott’s comments from the chat and responded to his remarks in bold.

Scott: As a free agent LBJ owed Cleveland nothing. That’s not disrespect, it’s just his right based on rules and bylaws established before he set foot in the NBA. Narcissistic? Star athlete has big decision, ubiquitous sports network is there to cover it.

Me: ESPN didn’t cover it, ESPN created it. Without ESPN, “The Decision” wouldn’t have existed.

From what we now know, the prospect of such an ESPN-enabled production may have been the main reason why James dragged out his choice for so long - causing such acute consternation to the people of Cleveland.

Scott: That’s what we do. … I am proud of the dozens of people who worked on that show. And for all the criticism it received, a 7.6 cable rating is ginormous. Read more…

I’ve got another pathetic tale involving LeBron James in Vegas last weekend to tell you about - though this time it won’t be spiked by the site hosting it.

(Bird blurred in video)

Cleveland’s FOX 8 reports today that LeBron James flipped off an Akron man ran into the NBA player at a Vegas nightclub last weekend.

Last weekend, DJ Fig, from Mix 94.1 in Akron, was at the Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas. Early Monday morning, he spotted LBJ and his entourage partying at a nightclub.

As he took out his camera to snap a picture, the deejay said LeBron gave him the finger.

“I said ‘Hey, Akron still loves you man,’ and he gave the bird as you see in the picture,” said DJ Fig.

Apparently DJ Fig is a glutton for punishment, as that wasn’t the end of his requests of James that night. Read more…