For a few years now, we’ve referred to LeBron James as “LeBron Inc.”, partly to make fun of him, and partly because it’s disturbingly accurate. Sure he’s sounds a little like Stringer Bell when he sells sponsorships to his birthday party or dreams of becoming a Global Icon, but on the other hand, when he came to South Florida area real state developers called it a “one billion dollar stimulus package.“ One way or another, we’re never short of reminders as to why LeBron Inc. fits.
Inside A LeBron Inc. Photo Shoot
And we got another one this week, when Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch talked to famed sports photographer Walter Iooss for a podcast, where Iooss remembers the LeBron circus at one of their shoots together. A transcript is after the jump.
You can listen to the entire podcast here, and here’s the LeBron story:
In the summer of the year he went to Miami, before he started playing, we did a Nike shoot. We had 62 people on this shoot. I mean I’ve never been on a... It’s like a movie.
And they had rented a sports arena in Los Angeles. They had security guards, LeBron’s security guards, looking like secret service guys talking into their wrists in the aisles. He had a DJ. They had a masseuse. They had like six black Escalades pull in. He had a motor home look like the Ritz Carlton. They had bath robes in it (laughs) they spent five minutes in there. Blasting music... AND I couldn’t even directly talk to LeBron.
It was crazy. I had to go through someone else, who was part of the (Amare) Stoudemire family. And you know, Stoudemire would be there, LeBron would be right next to him, and I’d go, “Okay tell LeBron to go left.” Now LeBron would hear me too, but you know [Stoudemire’s family] says, “Okay LeBron let’s go left.”
There were cherrypickers, you couldn’t hear anything ‘cause of the blasting music, it was chaos. And then in fifteen minutes he was gone. Into the Escalades and into the night...
Love him or hate him, just remember: If you ever want to talk to him, you gotta go through Stoudemire’s family first.
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