The Iconic Photo Capturing LeBron Passing Kareem Is Equally Sad As It Is Awesome When You See How Many Phones Are Out Recording The Moment

Andrew D. Bernstein. Getty Images.

Unless you truly live under a rock you know we had an all-time moment in sports Tuesday night with LeBron passing Kareem, but I'm not here to talk about the new scoring king. Greenie had that covered here. Nope, I'm here to talk about one of the more fascinating photos I've seen in a long time. 

As LeBron faded away with his jump shot practically every person at Crypto.com Arena (yuck, that'll never sound right) felt it was their obligation to capture the moment on their phone. Everyone except for Phil Knight who could not come off looking any cooler if he tried. Seriously, what a baller. But honestly, the picture itself is kinda sad to look at, and I'm sorry if that kind of observation makes me seem old. Is it lame to say just live in the moment and enjoy what you're witnessing?

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Let's talk reality for a second. There's no way whatever angle you're recording from is going to be any better than what you see on TV or from the lens of one of the league's photo/video people who get paid a good living to capture moments like this in incredible fashion. No instead you're gonna record this on your phone with the endgame of either posting it on social media to your hundreds of followers or texting your friends to make them feel jealous you were there. Either way the audience you're presenting this to all saw it on TV and certainly got a way better angle. The sound quality was probably trash as well since arena/stadium sound through a phone never comes out anywhere close to how it actually was. Maybe you got bumped by accident mid-shot or the image got blurry randomly because phones tend to be uncooperative during the worst times. It's possible you were in picture mode by mistake and completely fucked it all up — word to all the dads in attendance. What if you used up all the space in your phone from recording every play LeBron touched the ball in the game and got that storage alert the moment he went up for the shot? There are so many variables in play to make your video look like complete shit and that's if we ignore the original part where it was already worthless from the jump. 

Quick side note: Obviously none of this applies to LeBron's family. This clip of him looking at Bronny's video is awesome even if you don't like the guy. 

But back to the normal Average Joe in the stands in that photo, all you're doing by having your phone out there is robbing yourself of witnessing a sick sports memory you were lucky to be in the building for. Way to go schmucko. 

I can't go another moment without talking about one of my favorite parts of the photo, Thomas Bryant. I cackle every time I see the big guy sealing off his defender down low and calling for the ball. Perhaps it was the spirit of a Laker with the last name Bryant believing they should get the ball regardless of the situation, but I laughed out loud when I noticed that. He got the switch onto Shai and had a five inch height difference, let the man cook. Fuck your scoring record, Thomas Bryant is trying to get fed and win the game. 

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And then there's Phil Knight. Stone faced as ever just there to see it for himself. He couldn't be bothered to conform to the consensus. Being worth a shade under $50 billion pretty much spells out that you didn't give a flying fuck what everyone else did on your way to get where you are. Honestly he probably hadn't looked at his phone all game as he relentlessly recruited Bronny to Oregon with every breath in his body. 

Anyways sorry for the rant. Probably sounded like an old man yelling at clouds seeing all those phones. I've definitely found myself doing the same at a few Yankee games, but now I see the light. Just be a human, try to keep the iPhone in your pocket, and live a little. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk. 

P.S. I wrote this blog very late last night and scheduled for this morning to publish. I'm not overly pleased with how much phone chatter there's been on social media. May have made a grave error not publishing this at 3am