LeBron Explains Dunk Fiasco Finally

The NBA's reigning MVP finally breaks his silence on the "Dunkgate" scandal. You member!--when he got dunked on "!!OOOOHHHHHHH!!"


The King has spoken. Finally.

In an exclusive interview with the National Association of Black Journalists Sports Taskforce — who, fortunately for us, includes Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Marc J. Spears — LeBron James(notes) spoke candidly for the first time about getting dunked on at his Nike skills camp over the summer, the handshake snub hullabaloo following the Cavaliers loss in the Eastern Conference finals, Shaquille and more.

Here are some quotes straight from LeBron's mouth to Spears' notebook to your computer screen.

LeBron on "Dunkgate":

"I never told anyone to confiscate any tapes. Nike has a no videotape policy at pick-up games. They've always done that. Now that LeBron is involved, it's blown up. It's a play that happens in basketball all the time. You can go on YouTube and see me being dunked on by a lot of guys. I like to call myself a shot blocker and [getting dunked on] tends to happen. Jordan Crawford is going to be a good basketball player ..."

LeBron on the last game vs. Orlando:

"I wouldn't have done it the same. I would have done the media. Looking back on it, without you guys, there's no LeBron James, D-Wade, Tiger Woods or no Peyton Manning. If I could have started over again, I would have done the media. As I thought about it I could see why people were talking about because your job starts when mine ends.

"But as far as the dunk or whatever car I'm driving, some things you shouldn't comment and some things you should. I look at the no handshake like this — during the regular season, no one ever shakes hands. You move on to the next game. I congratulated Dwight Howard(notes) through email and told him good luck in the Finals. Shaking hands is not a big deal to me. It's not being a sore loser, it’s moving on. Sometimes people want you to accept losing and I'll never accept losing."

LeBron on playing with Shaquille O'Neal(notes):

"Wow, anytime you can get a guy like that. I was asked [by management if I] would you like him to be a part of this team and I said, 'Of course. I've never had a low-post presence since I've been in the league. I'd love it.'

"I can defer to a teammate. If Shaq is going, I'm OK. I know one thing that's going to happen; you can't check Shaq one-on-one. I can use some of my athleticism when a double team comes and slash to the rim. He's a very good passer so he'll just throw it at the rim and I'll go get it. This will benefit 'Z' [Zydrunas Ilgauskas(notes)] because he can go against second-tier guys. Shaq will be very big for us. I can be more of a threat. No matter if I catch it I can spot up and I'll still have a live dribble. I don't have to settle for taking a shot. Instead of dribbling the ball up where guys can pressure me. If I'm catching the ball out of double teams from Shaq, I can become a shooter. Now I can drive."

And finally, LeBron on whether he'll be back in Cleveland:

"I hope so. I signed a contract in 2006 with a three-year extension to leave my options open. Hopefully everything works out. I'm not ashamed of anything in Cleveland ... I'm looking forward to this season and we'll see what happens."

Politics led to Twitter attack

Attackers took down Twitter to silence one person!!


New and disturbing details about Thursday's world wide Twitter outage point to a single, coordinated attack targeting just one person: an outspoken Georgian blogger who goes by the handle "Cyxymu." Also affected: millions of other Twitter users.

According to CNET NEWS.COM, which got its information from a Facebook security executive, it appears that Cyxymu's Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Blogger accounts were attacked simultaneously in a massive denial-of-service attack. Facebook, LiveJournal and Blogger were able to ward off the attack for the most part, but the assault brought Twitter to it's kness for much of Thursday.

The culprits still haven't been identified, CNET reported, although an Internet traffic expert quoted by the New York Times said the attack came from Abkhazia, a territory along the eastern coast of the Black Sea that's in dispute between Russia and the Republic of Georgia.

And why was Cyxymu—a pro-Georgian blogger who "has long been viewed as an antagonist by some Russian supporters," According to The Resgister—targeted? "To keep his voice from being heard," the Facebook exec told CNET.

Here's what I find so chilling about yesterday's Twitter attack: that these guys, whoever they are, apparently thought nothing of taking down an entire communications network because they didn't like what one person was saying.

Imagine if someone didn't like what you were saying, and decided to shut you up by nuking your ISP, or your wireless carrier. Or heck, the entire phone system. All for you.

Personally, I can survive a morning without telling my legion of followers (all couple hundred of them) that I could really, really use a cup of coffee right now. (Although I know you're all dying to hear about that, right?)

I'm far more disturbed by (as the Facebook exec told CNET) "the disregard for the rest of the users and the Internet" displayed by these brazen thugs and their crude, indiscriminant attacks.