Michael Phelps Has Street Cred, Too

Not content with taking over the world by sea, the star of Michael Phelps promises to blind everything Olympic this week. Even the NBA stars on Team USA basketball have been sucked into his gravity, reports Elizabeth Merrill of ESPN.com.↵↵⇥Somewhere in between gold medal No. 1 and Sunday night’s prelims, Michael Phelps got a text message that made him feel a little more important. It said that LeBron James was fired up after his Sunday morning swim -- a world-record swim in the 400 IM that led to Phelps’ first gold in Beijing.↵↵LeBron won’t even text some of his Cavalier teammates (cough Wally Szczerbiak cough), so this is big. But wait! King James hasn’t cornered the Phelps market just yet. Only days ago, Carmelo Anthony insisted the strength of his kinship with the golden swimmer.↵↵⇥Michael Phelps is, of course, from my hometown of Baltimore. I got a chance to talk with him last night at the Olympic Village. I met him before just growing up, but I hadn’t met him since he won those six gold medals in 2004. So his whole life has changed. He’s not from the same neighborhood as me, but we’ll claim him.↵↵We’ll see whose jersey Phelps rocks when he attends the basketball gold medal game. B-more blood is strong, but it is well-known that ladies love the ‘92 Chris Mullin jersey.↵