Following Cleveland’s 112-106 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday night, Cavs superstar LeBron James was asked to comment on his copyright infringement beef with Nick Saban and the University of Alabama’s football program.
Alabama Football’s Twitter account posted a clip of “Shop Talk” earlier this week, which is a discussion-based show with a barber shop setting. Former Crimson Tide standout Julio Jones joined Saban in the show’s debut episode.
As most hoops fans know, James and his business associates already have a similar production with Uninterrupted called “The Shop.” James has released two episodes of the show, with a third expected to be coming soon.
The two shows are clearly similar, which is the root of this conundrum.
Saban made a statement with regards to the controversy Tuesday afternoon.
“I think LeBron James is a great player,” Saban said. “There has been at least 20 barbershop-type of things I’ve seen on TV. I didn’t know anybody owned that. I didn’t even know he had one.
“I’m sorry that anyone could be offended by something that we were just having fun with,” Saban said in closing. “I enjoyed it and we’re gonna continue to do it.”
James, who posted 27 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in Tuesday night’s game, offered a response to Saban’s statement.
“I mean, I think you guys (the media) knows Nick Saban more than I do,” James said following Tuesday’s game. “That’s exactly what I think he would say. But I built Uninterrupted for a reason — for us athletes to have a platform for us to be able to speak about whatever we want to talk about.
“I respect him as a coach, but I’ll be damned if I allow someone to use our platform and try to do the same thing we’re doing and just think it’s okay,” James continued. “The lawyers will figure it out.”
Exactly how the rest of this oredeal will go down remains to be seen. Be sure to keep your browsers locked on Cavs Nation for more updates as they become available.