LeBron James didn’t take long to try to find new work. Yesterday, James tweeted at ESPN’s John Clayton to ask him when the deadline is for NFL teams to sign free agents. It was obviously done half-jokingly, but hey, there’s never been a better time for the NBA’s best athlete to see if he could become a cross between Antonio Gates and Calvin Johnson. We’ve seen him put the pads on already this summer, and now with a long lockout ahead of us, he’ll probably never get this opportunity again. We can guarantee there’s some attraction on his part; Who wouldn’t want to test themselves and see if they could actually do it? Of course, there’s no way it’ll ever happen. Playing another sport is one thing. Football is a whole other animal. But you know who seriously needs to sign him? The … Cleveland Browns. The team has no hype, and field a lineup of jayvee outside threats. If anything, this would be one of the most bizarre situations ever (Cleveland fans wouldn’t know what to do), which is why it needs to happen. If you were an NFL GM, would you pull the trigger on LeBron? Better question: if you were LeBron, would you even think of suiting up? … In the Kobe Bryant video that has had everybody talking for about a week now, Bryant spoke on the Kings and Lakers rivalry from back in the day, the one that festered enough to create one of the most classic playoff tussles of the last 20 years: the 2002 Western Conference Finals. Kobe said Sacramento should’ve beat them. He admitted it. Too bad that squad couldn’t hit free throws. KB failed to mention a certain Game 6 and the shenanigans that now follow it, instead focusing on all the free throws the Kings missed in Game 7. Looking back, where does that playoff series sit all-time? Is it one of the best you’ve seen? For us, in the modern era, you have to talk Bulls/Celtics in 2009 as well as San Antonio/Dallas in 2006 and Chicago/Indiana in 1998. Those are the first three that come to mind … Rick Fox. A Hall of Famer? WHAT? We’ll say Carmelo Anthony just misremembered because there’s no other excuse. In an interview with GQ, ‘Melo actually said this about the Lakers of 2003-04: “I was fortunate enough to play against them when they had Shaq, Kobe, Rick Fox, Gary Payton, Karl Malone… that’s five hall of famers on one team!” … Ionut Adrian Tanasoaia, the man accused of beating up and killing the American basketball player, Chauncey Hardy, this weekend in Romania, turned himself into police. This whole thing went down reportedly because Hardy wanted to dance with the man’s girlfriend. Ridiculous … Drew Gooden is ready to make some dough outside of the NBA. He’s opening up four Wingstop restaurants around the Orlando area. Gooden had plans to try to buy into Five Guys, but wasn’t able to. Imagine if he bought into a barbershop chain. Would you ever go? … Here’s the saddest thing we’ve seen from this lockout: two sports media cameramen going at it in the middle of New York City as they wait to report on the lockout. We have no clue how Carmelo/Mardy Collins Part II began, but it’s one of the saddest things we’ve ever seen. Until they resorted to kicking each other a minute and three seconds in, we counted a total of two “punches” thrown. How do you go that long and a) not throw some haymakers and b) not lose the edge and just chill out? They looked like a couple of robins in the backyard, fidgeting, starting, and stopping suddenly. Pathetic … And for the lockout itself, no one expects any meetings for at least a week, so… yeah. It still sucks … We’re out like Rick Fox the Hall of Famer.
Follow Dime Magazine on Twitter
Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook