LeBron James does not — we repeat, does not — think Jews “suck” at basketball.
The Shmooze can report this happy piece of news after the NBA star’s latest difficult episode in Cleveland, where his jersey was burned last year following his highly publicized defection from the local Cavaliers to the Miami Heat.
An Akron native, James played basketball last week at his Cleveland’s Mandel Jewish Community Center (of all places!) after a spot opened up on his friends’ basketball team. Initial reports suggested the JCC game went well for the 26-year-old, whose team won by 10 points. “So funny but good run,” James later tweeted.
Maybe Jimmy Kimmel thought all rabbis look alike.
Reuters reported last week that ABC’s late-night funnyman has been hit with a lawsuit by a Brooklyn Jew whose likeness Kimmel featured in a “Jimmy Kimmel Live” parody video. In a sketch that aired in August, Kimmel spoofed a visit that basketball superstar LeBron James had made to so-called “rabbi to the stars” Yishayahu Yosef Pinto. In the segment, “Kimmel told viewers that he too had met with the rabbi, and then showed a video edited to make it seem that Kimmel was listening to an Orthodox Jew blathering incoherently in Yiddish,” according to Gothamist.com. But the punim in the video actually belonged to one Dovid Sandek of Borough Park — also known as “the flying Rabbi,” Gothamist said, “though he’s not technically a rabbi.”
In the wake of his much-maligned primetime special announcing his move to the Miami Heat, is hoops superstar LeBron James desperate for some good advice?
That’s James’ ghostwriter Buzz Bissinger’s take on gossip blog TMZ’s scoop that the Heat’s new forward sought the advice of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, the kabbalist guru we covered in June.
“Whoever this rabbi is or isn’t, he can’t possibly give worse advice than his handlers have given him,” said Bissinger, who co-authored a biography titled “Shooting Stars” with the player. “The Decision,” James’ hour-long announcement aired on ESPN on July 8 to near-unanimous derision.
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