The Dunk Was "As Good As It Could've Been Hyped Up To Be"

Ryan Miller, the would-be Zapruder whose video of LeBron getting Tom Chambered was commandeered by a Nike goon, has offered a few more details about the incident. Namely: The dunk was awesome, and Bron-Bron was kind of a prick.

Miller spoke with WHTK-AM in Rochester, N.Y., where he apparently used to intern. You can listen to the podcast here. A rough transcript:

Ryan Miller: [The dunk] was good. I haven't looked online to read too much about it. It was as good as it could've been hyped up to be. LeBron's team actually lost two out of three games to these college guys. It was LeBron; Danny Green, the rookie; Christian Eyenga, the rookie; Tarence Kinsey, who's on the team; and one of LeBron's high school buddies. And Jordan Crawford blew by Danny Green, the kid from North Carolina on the Cavs. And LeBron came for some help defense, and they jumped at the same time, and he threw it down with two hands over LeBron. This is, like, a 6-foot-4 kid.

Interviewer: Man. So then, when you get word that they want your camera, then, how did that all break down?

Miller: It's funny because LeBron's team won that game, actually, [the one] with the dunk. And then LeBron's team lost the next game to the same group of college guys. And LeBron was just standing there, grabbing some water, 'cause it was winners stay on, so LeBron had to sit out a game. And I actually went up and introduced myself and said, "Hey, I'm Ryan Miller." LeBron's good friends with Jonny Flynn, and I know Jonny real well, and I was like, "[I'm] good friends with Jonny." Jonny gave me a little message to tell LeBron if I ended up seeing him. He's like, "Oh, where are you from?" I said, "Syracuse" — [it was a] "nice to meet you" type of thing. He's pretty friendly. Then two minutes later, I saw him go over to Lynn Merritt, the director of basketball at Nike, and then he was talking to him for a second, and then Lynn brought me and another camera guy over. We were the only two people filming — it was later at night — and they said, we need your tape. They claimed you weren't supposed to be shooting the college and the pro guys working out, and I was told earlier in the day that you could, and there was no media policy saying you couldn't. It had to have been because LeBron — he played terribly all day, actually. Those three games he played terribly. So my guess is he didn't want anybody seeing the footage. That's the only thing we could think of.

Interviewer: So when you get your camera or tape — so that tape is gone?

Miller: I don't know what happened to it. He originally claimed, well, like, these guys are just getting in shape right now, these Cavs guys. People don't need to be seeing 'em. He was kind of giving me the runaround with different excuses. There was a guy in charge of the media who took my tape, and he's like, "You know what, lemme just pass this by the Nike guys, and I'll give it back to you in the morning." But the next morning, he said the director at Nike actually wanted the tape himself, so I have no idea where it is.

Miller goes on to talk about how he lived with his college roommate's grandmother last summer but now Ben Howland is paying for his dinner or something, so life is all skittles and beer, even if he is getting his stuff jacked by a gargantuan shoe company and the best basketball player in the world.

Podcasts [WHTK]
EARLIER: LeBron Gets Dunked On; None Of Us Are Witnesses

Send an email to Tommy Craggs, the author of this post, at craggs@deadspin.com.

publish on Facebook

Upload an image | Add an image URL ×

Image URL: ×

Youtube URL: ×

Choose a file to upload:

×

Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×

Loading comments ...

Earlier discussions | Other discussions | Show all discussions | Show featured discussions only | Expand all replies Hide all replies
Start a new discussion