Tag: More Than An Athlete

Draymond Green joins “More Than a Vote” initiative with LeBron James

Draymond Green is teaming up with LeBron James and other athletes for “More Than a Vote.”

Before he leads the Los Angeles Lakers on a trip to Orlando to wrap up the NBA season, LeBron James is forming a voting rights group. In an interview with Jonathan Martin of The New York Times, James announced the “More Than a Vote” organization to help inspire voting in black American communities. With November’s election approaching, the initiative will aim to protect voting rights and help battle voting suppression.

According to Martin, The James led group will team up with other voting rights organizations like When We All Vote and Fair Fight. James and his longtime business partner Maverick Carter will provide the initial funding for the project.

Via The New York Times:

“Yes, we want you to go out and vote, but we’re also going to give you the tutorial,” James told The New York Times. “We’re going to give you the background of how to vote and what they’re trying to do, the other side, to stop you from voting.”

Along with a group of other athletes and entertainers, a member of the Golden State Warriors is getting involved. Draymond Green is slated to join James’ voting initiative. According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, Green will be involved with outreach in Saginaw and East Lansing, Michigan.

Together with James and Green, current and former NBA players will join the group, including Atlanta’s Trae Young, Milwaukee’s Eric Bledsoe, Miami’s Udonis Haslem, Stephen Jackson, Kendrick Perkins, Jalen Rose and Sam Perkins. WNBA stars Skylar Diggins-Smith and Chiney Ogwumike are set to join with NFL running back Alvin Kamara and comedian Kevin Hart.

[lawrence-related id=25629,23397,27791,27858,27907,27886,27877]

Take a look at this hilarious LeBron James-Michael Jordan mash-up video

The internet remains undefeated when it comes to creating rapid edits for the purposes of jokes about the NBA.

The internet, forever and always, remains undefeated, even during a global pandemic. Several interviews over the course of ‘The Last Dance,’ particularly while Michael Jordan is looking at other interviews on an iPad, have become instant memes online and have been used for every purpose imaginable over the last few days. But only one truly stands out for basketball fans over the last few days.

An unidentified fan put together moments from episode 8 of ‘The Last Dance,’ where Michael Jordan is laughing at an interview of Gary Payton, but have replaced the Payton interview with LeBron’s statement that beating the Golden State Warriors made him the ‘greatest player of all-time,’ in his mind, from UNINTERRUPTED’s ESPN+ series ‘More Than An Athlete.’

Obviously, it’s a hilarious video and one that is getting a lot of shares over the last couple of days. Those who believe LeBron is the GOAT will disagree but it’s probably just better to take the hilarious video in stride and recognize how great Michael Jordan was like LeBron himself has over the last few weeks.

[lawrence-related id=29966,29914]

 

LeBron James’ media company being sued over ‘More Than An Athlete’ slogan

The Los Angeles Lakers star’s media company has found itself in court over a lawsuit from a Maryland-based youth group.

LeBron James sports media company, UNINTERRUPTED, as well as several other partners involved with the brand, have bee named in a lawsuit by a Maryland-based youth group alleging that UNINTERRUPTED stole the slogan “More Than An Athlete,” from their organization.

News broke about the lawsuit on Friday from Game Plan Inc., who alleged that LeBron stole the slogan when he saw it on a t-shirt at a Cavaliers-Wizards game in 2017, according to an ESPN.com report.

Game Plan Inc., a youth development nonprofit, says it applied to trademark the phrase “I Am More Than An Athlete” in June 2016 and first used it on T-shirts at a Washington Wizards game on Oct. 8, 2017, when they played James’ former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. A group of players wearing the T-shirts had their photograph taken with Wizards star John Wall before the game, according to the complaint.

Uninterrupted released its own statement as well.

Uninterrupted dismissed the allegations in a statement, saying, “The complaint filed by Game Plan today is meritless and contains numerous factual inaccuracies. Uninterrupted owns prior rights in and to the More Than An Athlete trademark.”

Without splitting too many hairs here about the lawsuit, it is going to be interesting how this plays out. The “More Than” construct is not at all new to the LeBron James universe, being used by him far before Uninterrupted even existed, long before they put it on any merchandise. The documentary film “More Than A Game,” which covered LeBron and his teammates during his senior season trying to win a state championship, was released in 2009.

[lawrence-related id=19167,6232]