ESPN Pulls Arasha Markazi Lebron James’ Vegas Story? But We Got It
Arasha Markazi works for ESPN Los Angeles and wrote a story about Lebron James hanging out in Vegas last weekend (read the entire article by clicking picture above).
The story itself isn’t that bad.
Young rich guy and his friends in Vegas, so you kind of know what is going on.
There was some interesting tidbits in the story:
- Lebron getting 6 figures to host the Vegas Events
- Maverick Carter being compared to Puff Daddy
- The Groupies, bathwaterslurpers and yes men
- Poppin bottles
Nothing really unusual for anyone who has ever hung out in Vegas with some high rollers except for one thing.
ESPN pulled the story and the question everyone wants to know is:
WHY?
It becomes a big problem with athletes have enough pull to control the media, ironically I had two incidents where I was asked to pull stories yesterday (the Mike Hamlin & Nic Harris story).
As you can see those stories are still up.
If Lebron and his team have enough pull to get ESPN to take down a story that can be perceived as not showing Lebron in the best light, how could we ever take anything ESPN says about Lebron at face value?
If that is the case Lebron is the mafia and ESPN is the Flamingo.
And we are the guys trying to win at blackjack even though the cards are already stacked against us.
This is no different than Lebron and Nike confiscating his infamous “Dunked on Video”.
Remember Lebron’s people came to ESPN for “The Decision”, did that come with certain stipulations? Does that mean anytime something is written that King South Beach doesn’t like it can’t be put on the site? Will Lebron have one of his “yes men” on the ESPN.com editorial team now? Did Lebron send in Chris Bosh to take care of this? What in the Blue Hell is going on around here?
These are questions that need to be answered because right now this seems very suspect.
*UPDATE*
ESPN has made the following comment:
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.”
In unrelated news:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Robert Littal, Robert Littal, Thunder Lee Dawkins , gLaDiAtOr_24, L. A. Jones and others. L. A. Jones said: Fall out from "The Decision" RT @BlkSportsOnline: ESPN Pulls Lebron James' What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas Story? http://bit.ly/9OUbrX [...]
wow, is there any honesty left anymore?
ESPN has always been up to some shady and questionable stuff. They seem to cover up for athletes even during times when they should be called out. When Tom Brady was having a great season back in 07', all of ESPn was kissing his ass all day, when Peyton Manning was just as good, if not better. Then after he got hurt and returns and has some subpar games, ESPN finds yet more excuses for why he has performed less-than-Bradyish, but always holds him in the spotlight as being the best. When Lebron hurt his elbow, everyone used that as his crutch for why he performed so bad in the NBA finals. ESPN are some shady folks, I've always felt that way.
I’m surprised ESPN even ran a story like this. Even for a fluff piece, an athlete going to Vegas is no big deal. Just another case of bathwater slurping by ESPN for their new bias.
Like you said on twitter, Rob, the cover-up’s always worse than the lie and regarding LeBron, ESPN should’ve known better given that LBJ and Nike did the same thing last year with him getting posterized. The network failed because they know full well somebody’s gonna post the article and now they look like idiots.
[...] This isn’t about him, this is about you Cleveland fan. It is time to move on, King South Beach is not coming back he has more important things to do like make sure ESPN runs the proper stories on him. [...]
Yeah…..BSO….I'd like to know what did you guys do with my original comment?
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