Posts Tagged ‘LeBron James’

Eric Yee, a 21-year-old former Yale University student from Santa Clarita, was arrested on Tuesday for threatening comments he made under a story on ESPN’s website. According to the LA County Sheriff’s Department, Lee Yee apparently threatened to lead an Aurora, Colorado-style massacre on Valencia schoolchildren in the comment section of an ESPN story about Lebron James‘ new line of $270 shoes. ESPN turned his comments over to authorities after a moderator became sufficiently alarmed.

Yee is being held by the LA County Sheriffs Department on $1 million bail after deputies found several guns in his home.

The actual language Lee Yee used was scrubbed from ESPN and hasn’t been released to the public. We’re not sure if Yee’s threat was legit. Nor, apparently, are investigators. They’re currently checking to see if he ever made similar threats online.

No matter Lee Yee’s motivation, there is a lesson in his story for all you Internet trolls out there: simmer down.

ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons isn’t shy when it comes to broadcasting his sports gambling picks.

Gambling is normally a topic of discussion on his The B.S. Report podcast, which if fine and dandy unless you end up having a direct impact on the final outcome.

Earlier this year, Simmons said on his podcast that he was betting on LeBron James to win the 2012 NBA MVP award.

Little did Simmons or ESPN know that the NBA would send him a voting ballot for the 2011-12 NBA season — which he filled out last week on The B.S. Report. On the podcast, he voted for James (duh) as MVP.

It appeared this blatant conflict of interest was going to fly under the radar until Business Insider grilled ESPN about their gambling policy:

“Bill had never received a ballot before and didn’t find out he had one until two-thirds of the season had passed. By that time he had made multiple MVP bets, two of which he had discussed on podcasts. He ended up withdrawing his MVP vote to avoid the perception of any conflict.”

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Washington Times reporter Kerry Picket and staff at The Smoking Gun spent part of yesterday exposing the very objectionable actions of LA resident Marcus Davonne Higgins. Since the middle of last week, Higgins – who on Twitter goes by the handle of @MACCAPONE – has been tweeting out to celebrities a South Florida address he claimed belonged to George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin.

Never mind the insensitivity (and possible criminal liability) of such an action. Greatly complicating matters is the fact that the information, which was re-tweeted by filmmaker Spike Lee last Friday, has now been shown to be completely incorrect. Per Picket and TSG, the address is that of a namesake man who has not lived at the tweeted address since 2005. This Zimmerman is the son of a senior citizen couple still at the residence. From the Smoking Gun report:

The original tweet was sent to Lee (and numerous other celebrities like Will Smith, 50 Cent, and LeBron James) last Friday afternoon by Higgins, a 33-year-old Los Angeles man… Higgins first began disseminating the address to his Twitter followers last Wednesday…

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Actor Rob Lowe is getting absolutely hammered around the web for his attempt at sports reporting yesterday. Manning’s father and agent denied Lowe’s reporting to USA Today. Lowe is apparently friendly with Colts owner Jim Irsay–who is the presumed source of the tweet heard round the sports world.

Not sure how Lowe’s tweet is different from the thousands of reports we heard in the run-up to Lebron James‘ “decision,” that had him going everywhere from the Chicago Bulls to the Death Star to play alongside Emperor Palpapatine. Remember though, everyone made fun of Stephen A. Smith for reporting out-of-the-blue that Lebron was going to Miami. And we know how that turned out.

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The buzz surrounding the resurgent Los Angeles Clippers/Los Angeles Lakers rivalry is spreading across the country.

Monday’s preseason game between the Clippers and Lakers was the most-watched preseason game in NBA TV history with 509,000 viewers.

It broke the previous record of 501,000 viewers set when LeBron James made his Miami Heat debut in 2010.

This might be the first of many ratings records set by the Clippers during the abbreviated 2011-12 NBA season.

The follower count for the parody Twitter account @TheBillWalton now sits at around 37,500. Not stratospheric, by any means, but also not bad for somewhat of an esoteric goof.

Adam Penenberg, a contributor to Fast Company, caught up with the LA-New York writer duo that operates the account. Like fellow interviewee @NotBurtReynolds, the faux authors prefer to remain anonymous. But the pair did share some follower-building secrets:

“We started by tweeting at various well-known basketball players and figures… Then Jalen Rose tweeted back at us and we jumped from a few hundred to a few thousand followers in just hours. We kept adding followers throughout the NCAA basketball tournament and NBA playoffs.

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During his recent appearance on Piers Morgan Tonight, Howard Stern revisited the origins of the ubiquitous tagline “The King of All Media.” It was all part of a joke made with Jackie Martling, an attempt by Stern to prove that if he referred to himself often enough by a certain sobriquet, that sobriquet would stick.

With this week’s announcement of a new $3.99 Howard Stern comic book to be put out in April by Vancouver, Washington based Bluewater Productions, the radio host is that much closer to living out the Martling joke. Per the press release:

Acording to Bluewater president Darren Davis, “Orbit” is a natural extension of the biography comic division established by Bluewater’s “Female Force,” “Fame,” and “Political Power.”

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The front page of ThePostGame.com, launched Tuesday night by Yahoo! Sports in partnership with SportsFanLive.com, looks great. The subtle grey-blue background and large photo-graphics skeins will no doubt pop on the iPad.

On the other hand, it’s strange that the website has nothing up on the front page at press time (other than a throwaway poll question) about the bad-karma LeBron James tweet heard around the NBA. Also, we’re not sure why the photo slides across the board do not include the names of article authors.

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Lakers vs. Celtics. An historical rivalry renewed. Dramatic seven game series. Improbable fourth quarter comeback in the final game. Kobe Bryant is a total goat, going 6 for 24. Crazy-ass Ron Artest arguably the hero of the game! Kobe tops Shaq in rings, and calls him out on national television! Easily one of the best sports stories of the year, no?

Not if you’re the Associated Press. The AP just came out with its list of the top 10 sports stories of the year, and the Lakers are nowhere on it. Tiger Woods and his wandering penis made the cut, of course. So did LeBron James and his Decision. NASCAR’s Jimmy Johnson was on there too. So, um, yeah.

In fairness the AP didn’t just arbitrarily choose the list. Stories were voted on by 176 people from AP affiliate news organizations across the U.S.

LA did have one story on the list: the death of UCLA coaching great John Wooden was number 10.

ESPN blogger and resident Boston Celtics fan Bill Simmons will get his first crack at the telestrator tomorrow night–calling the Miami Heat vs. Golden State Warriors game for ESPN. He’ll work alongside Dan Shulman and Mark Jackson.

Simmons has done TV before, sitting in on ESPN’s popular “Pardon the Interruption” show, and he also hosts a regular podcast. But it will be interesting to see how he does on live TV. He used to write jokes for the Jimmy Kimmel Show, so we know he’s funny. The one problem we can foresee is that Simmons is a huge Boston homer and hates LeBron James and the Heat with a passion. Will he be able to control himself? Can’t imagine the league will be happy if Simmons rips on their most intriguing team for the entire game.