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ESPN abruptly dumps salacious LeBron James party story (UPDATED with ESPN response)

Jul 28, 2010, 11:45 AM EST

226 Comments

If you were reading a rather provocative ESPN story about LeBron James partying at a Las Vegas night club, and now you’re not, there’s a reason for that. ESPN yanked the story off the Internets after only a few minutes of life. The piece by Arash Markazi, which actually appeared on ESPN’s Los Angeles affiliate site, tells of a Roman banquet-style blowout following James’ announcement of his move to Miami. As tell-all stories about a night with an NBA superstar go, this one was pretty tremendous. Excerpts:

A security guard comes over and puts plastic wristbands on our wrists and escorts us through the back of the restaurant, up a flight of stairs in the bowels of the hotel and through a back entrance into the club. About a dozen security guards, moving their flash lights, direct us to a roped off section on the dance floor of Tao next to a couple of apparently nude women in a bathtub full of water and rose petals.

Bottle after bottle of “Ace of Spades” champagne is delivered to the table by a waiter flying down from above the dance floor like some overgrown Peter Pan on a wire. One time he’s dressed like a King, another time as Indiana Jones and another in a replica of James’ No. 6 Miami Heat jersey.

James, who can hardly see the flying figure through his tinted glasses, almost gets kicked in the head on the waiter’s last trip down. He looks at the girls around him and says, “I wish they’d have one of these girls with no panties do that instead of the guy.”

Toward the end of the night, Boston Celtics forward Glen Davis walks past James’ party and looks at the scene up and down several times like a painting in a museum, soaking in the images of the go-go dancers, the “King” sign and the costumed man delivering bottles of champagne.

Davis shakes his head and walks on.

UPDATE: ESPN response following the jump.

Five security guards are stationed around him, one at each corner of the table he’s about to sit at and another roving around with him, watching his every move. Anyone who takes two steps toward James is stopped and must have James’ approval to come closer.

The waiter bringing him his cup of green tea with a spoonful of honey and a dash of lemon juice makes the cut, as does the scantily clad brunette with a tattoo of a heart on her right shoulder.

She wants to take a picture with him. “I can’t right now,” says James. “Maybe later, upstairs, I’ll remember you’re the one with the tattoo.”

Even though ESPN immediately moved to spike the story, the HTML version soon came out. Here it is (click to enlarge), thanks to the efforts of such people as Matthew LaWell and Chris Littman, two of several who posted links on their Twitter accounts. As the blog Waiting For Next Year points out, “The Internet always wins.”

Carter, LeBron’s childhood friend and manager, begins dancing around James like Puff Daddy in a Notorious B.I.G video. A giant red crown-shaped cake is brought over to James while go-go dancers dressed in skimpy red and black outfits raise four lettered placards that spell out, “KING.” Carter grabs a bottle of Grey Goose and pours a quarter of it on the floor and raises it up before passing it off.

ESPN heavily invested in James with The Decision show, all the while insisting that there had been no blurring of the line between producing the TV spectacle and reporting the story. But now it appears that there may be a conflict of interest at play; Markazi’s eyewitness account doesn’t exactly show LeBron in the best light. He’s a somewhat-married father of two, after all. Literally wading in Grey Goose? Waiters floating on wires? Naked chicks in bathtubs? Caligula is wondering if his invitation got lost in the mail.
Did the LeBron camp send orders to ESPN to yank the story? I’ve contacted ESPN for a response, and have heard only that they’re “looking into it.”
UPDATE: ESPN responds. In an email to Out of Bounds, an ESPN spokesman wrote:

“The story should have never been published. The draft was inadvertently put on the server before going through the usual editorial process. We are in the midst of looking into the matter.”

UPDATE: From Sports Business Daily:

James’ reps confirmed ESPN’s statement that removing the article was an editorial decision, telling CNBC that they had no say in the matter. As of presstime, Markazi had not commented on the matter nor posted anything on his Twitter account in more than 24 hours.

***
ESPN Mysteriously Pulls LeBron James Las Vegas Tell-All [Wait For Next Year]
A Kid in King James’ court [ESPNLosAngeles.com]

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226 Comments (Feed for Comments)
  1. Cal3030 - Jul 29, 2010 at 3:22 PM

    So it’s big sports news when a Mega Rich athlete party’s in Vegas.

    • roundtuit - Jan 7, 2011 at 4:32 PM

      Exactly! Who cares really, gives us the real news. A story about big headed athletes sucking down booze bores me.

  2. GoMoJo - Jul 29, 2010 at 6:48 PM

    Hillarious!

  3. hurrrrdurrrr - Jul 29, 2010 at 6:58 PM

    It’s a meme…learn to internet

  4. Bid - Jul 29, 2010 at 7:07 PM

    “the Internets” is meant to be a pop-culture joke. Same as when you hear people talking about the “Interwebs”. It’s just slang.

  5. Thane - Jul 29, 2010 at 7:40 PM

    Well, if he can’t have a ring, why should she? ;)

  6. Internetz - Jul 29, 2010 at 8:13 PM

    Yes, Jim, Internet *is* a proper noun. It is supposed to be capitalized.
    As for “Internets”, it’s a bit of an in-joke, as anyone who’s been on the Internets in the past few years should already know:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internets

  7. J - Jul 29, 2010 at 8:39 PM

    Apparently, you have no clue what a pop culture reference is, numb nuts.

  8. Tony - Jul 29, 2010 at 8:59 PM

    Just needed to capitalize Scholars ;)

  9. MFunkibut - Jul 29, 2010 at 9:20 PM

    If I may have have the attention of all y’all jagoffs.
    A] It does not matter whether it’s internets, Internet or a series of !@#$% tubes.
    B] It does not matter that LeBron partied in Vegas. !@#$%dammi+ I’d be pretty surprised if he didn’t
    C] The question is did ESPN spike a story to protect LeBron? Did they? Did they? Did they?
    And I’d have to guess not – any !@#$% editor can figure out that real sports fans could not care less about what happens at Tao.
    Now if LeBron had beat the !#@$% $#!+ outta said flying waiter and ESPN had spiked the story, then I could generate a little more outrage. If you replace the name Lebron with Tony Heyworth [BP CEO] then I could get down right postal about a suppressed story.
    But there ain’t no story here kids. Just another multimillionaire living a life of incredible excess while other human beings on the planet starve and die. No news. Move along.

  10. Robert L. Randall - Jul 29, 2010 at 9:33 PM

    You all need to get a life! Let this man grow up. His importance is between the lines on the basketball court between November and June.

  11. Steven Cea - Jul 29, 2010 at 10:29 PM

    You could “do a better intro”? Really Jim? How about you learn how to spell first?! “As for James, he’s going to go over the edge like way to many of the other…”
    Hey Jimbo, the word you need is “too”, as in addition; also or to excessive extent or degree or more, as specified, than should be: “too many”.
    Yeah, you could do it ‘betterer’ eh Jimbo?

  12. Doc j - Jul 30, 2010 at 8:04 AM

    Jim,
    Agreed. James will become another illustration of what happens to most pro athletes with wayyyy too much money, opportunity, and time on his hands.
    And by the way — when editorializing, you might want to check your own spelling, grammar and syntax. It’s “TOO” many superstars.. not “to”
    Doc J

  13. Hey! - Jul 30, 2010 at 10:01 AM

    Hey, MFunkibut. Learn to speak english before lecturing people.

  14. Mondo - Jul 30, 2010 at 11:29 AM

    Where have you been? I know of 5 or more American internetz, not counting military nets, or anything outside of the USA.

  15. MichaelinBigD - Jul 30, 2010 at 2:20 PM

    I for one had no problem with Lebron going to Miami. He didn’t owe anything to the city of Cleveland. He was an unrestricted free agent which means that he may go wherever he pleased. The ‘Decision’ was a big PR flop but he should be fine. However, hearing about him playing air basketball walking to and from hotels makes him sound like a big douche. Lebron definitely lost several cool points with me on that nonsense. Why didn’t one of his friends turn and tell him that he looks like a schmuck?

  16. Fender - Jul 30, 2010 at 2:51 PM

    This is a non-story anyway. wow, a wealthy professional athlete in his mid 20s has a bacchanalian party at a Vegas club? Stunning. Truly. The story is ESPN looking again like a cowardly network in bed with athletes and afraid of ruffling feathers. The company lacks a journalistic backbone, but in this instance, this is more of a TMZ story than an athletic one, in any event.

  17. aman - Jul 30, 2010 at 3:18 PM

    clearly anyone who thinks this is irrational behavior from 25yr old extremely wealthy athlete (black or white) is simple said A MORON!!!!

  18. aman - Jul 30, 2010 at 3:20 PM

    MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY!

  19. john - Aug 2, 2010 at 4:17 PM

    Just to be fair, the naked girls in the bathtub is a regular thing at Tao; I see it every time I’m there. Now as for the rest of the stuff…

  20. supsup - Aug 7, 2010 at 7:51 AM

    even if he’s married, and he’s not, who cares?

  21. toonster - Aug 12, 2010 at 1:48 PM

    guys, read the story. it doesn’t say LB is married, but that he’s quasi-married. he’s also 100% a father. he should start acting like it.

  22. dutchboy - Aug 12, 2010 at 5:05 PM

    It cracks me up when a guy belittles someone for poor grammer and makes his own grammatical error in the process. It should be “like way too many superstars”, not “to many”. Get your own stuff straight before knocking someone else.

  23. happyjack59 - Aug 18, 2010 at 10:05 PM

    I really, really wish I was twenty-five, famous and rich.

  24. xx4me - Aug 27, 2010 at 12:50 AM

    “…bit of a tool”?
    I wasn’t aware there was any doubt before this. You did “hit the nail on the head” though.

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