Sir Le Bron And The Legend of Crab Dribble

Dashiell Bennett|published: Mon 5th January, 15:30 2009

Where the hell did LeBron James come up with his ridiculous " crab dribble" yarn to explain away his traveling call against the Wizards? He's quite a storyteller!

A little less than one year from now, dictionary companies will no doubt be putting "crab dribble" on their annual "word or phrase of the year" lists, but it turns out that the etymology of this little nugget is quite a compelling tale. And believe it or not, James did not just make it up like he's Tommy Flanagan trying to get out of traffic ticket.

Crab dribble is not, as many suspected, the reason they give you a bib in seafood restaurants, but an actual legitimate basketball technique (link to PDF) taught by actual coaches at those basketball camps your parents couldn't afford to send you to. Essentially, it's when a ball handler turns his (or her) back the defender, moving laterally or on a diagonal, while keeping the ball bouncing in between the legs—which are kept crouched and wide apart, like a crab. This helps the offensive player protect the ball against aggressive, high-pressure defenders and makes you sound like an idiot when you try to explain it to the boys in your rec league.

As you can see from this demonstration video, LeBron has obviously been training with the finest high school girls basketball teams in the country, but he forgot one minor detail. In order to successfully execute the crab dribble ... you have to actually be dribbling. Antawn Jamison says he knows what a crab dribble is and that, sir, was no crab dribble. LeBron claims he's the only one in the league who performs this "trademark" play, but maybe that's because you're the only one in the league who can't do it correctly, Mr. James.