Lebron James playing up the injury?

If you haven't seen Lebron James' ridiculous left handed free throw from Game 5 of the Bulls vs. Cavs first round series you probably don't have a television. Either that or you have one of those creepy wire hanger antenna jobs. In any event, you definitely didn't see the 32 minutes that Sportscenter spent breaking down the footage.

A day after the Celtics and Cavaliers closed out their first round series in five games, all of the talk on sports airwaves surrounded James' decision to take a left handed free throw with his team up by four points with a little over seven seconds remaining. James claimed that his elbow had been bothering him for weeks now, and that after converting the first free throw right handed, his "funny bone" became "numb." The pain was apparently so excruciating that he could no longer use the arm to take another shot.

First of all, there is zero chance that Lebron wasn't able to shoot the ball with his right hand. Let's get that straight right off the bat. I mean, the man even admitted it after the game.

It comes as no shock to me that Lebron would pull a stunt like that. Lebron's entire persona is custom made for Sportscenter. Anyone who has watched his career would know that Lebron is more than willing to put his team's best interest behind his own. With his team only leading by four (technically still a one-posession game), James would rather hoist a left handed prayer of a free throw and get a Sportscenter and a half dedicated to him, than knock down the shot and bury the Bulls.

You only have to go back to the Easter Sunday game against Boston for an example of Lebron foresaking the team's best interests for his own glory. Down two with under 20 seconds to go James pulled up for the go ahead triple on a fast break rather than taking the layup and probably getting fouled. He probably would have taken the free throw lefty!

I go back and forth between three scenarios as to why Lebron decided to take the shot lefty.

The first one I referenced above. Maybe his elbow is a little banged up and once he believed the game was in hand he saw an opportunity to have his Willis Reed moment replayed on Sportscenter a Lebrillion times. Which is exactly what happened.

The second scenario revolves around Lebron's penchant for trash talking. Now, as a Celtics fan I should be the last to throw stones, but let's just say we know one when we see one. I think it's very possible that Lebron either took the shot lefty to degrade the Bulls, or even that he told one of the players that he could ice them left handed.

The third scenario comes from the story heard after the game that Lebron told his coach to call a timeout before the free throws. Mike Brown either didn't hear him, or didn't agree and a timeout wasn't called. Lebron takes the shot left handed to make a point to Mike Brown; you don't listen to me and see what happens.

All of theses scenarios are in play in my opinion, and if it comes out at some point that one of them was true, I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

It doesn't surprise me that the national media bought his act either. There hasn't been an athlete with as much "he can do no wrong" cache as Lebron since Tiger Woods. Hmm.

I'm not saying that Lebron is anywhere near the two-faced athlete that Tiger is. Woods is in uncharted territory. I'm just saying that I don't believe that Lebron's true persona matches the one shown to (and portrayed by) the media.

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/extras/green_room/

As I said before, he is the biggest actor in the NBA! Say what you want about Pierce, everytime LeBron gets hit he grimace's makes faces, when he falls on the floor he rolls around like he has been hit by a mack truck. I guess this is his way of showing just how good an actor he is for Hollywood. After all, isn't that where he is going to end up????

If he is actually having the kind of problems that are being portrayed it will become a big factor for the rest of the playoffs.

That stuff aint gonna go away without extended resting so he will have to deal with it for the rest of the playoffs (if it actually is as portrayed).