“LeBron James Says He's Got 'Better Shoe' Than Kobe Bryant - San Francisco Gate” plus 1 more

LeBron James Says He's Got 'Better Shoe' Than Kobe Bryant - San Francisco Gate

Posted: 24 Dec 2010 07:15 PM PST

LOS ANGELES -- Might LeBron James be starting a shoe war with Kobe Bryant?

Nike announced this week that three NBA stars will be wearing special shoes on Christmas Day. The cheapest of the three is Oklahoma City forward Kevin Durant's Zoom KD III, which has a suggested retail price of $88 primarily because Durant doesn't want a super expensive shoe.

The others that also will hit the stores Sunday are James' LeBron 8 V/2, which has a suggested price of $160, and Bryant's Zoom Kobe VI, which retails for $130. So the natural question is: Why in the heck does the Miami star's shoe sell for $30 more?

"Yeah, it's a better shoe,'' James said Friday after a practice at UCLA on the eve of Miami's Christmas Day battle with Bryant's Lakers at the Staples Center. "But we're all one Nike family.''

So why is it a better shoe?

"Because it is,'' James said. "Because it's LeBron's shoe. It's got my name on it. I take pride in my shoes every year and I've always taken pride in having the best shoe. So they're going to cost a little more if you decide to wear them.''

As to what Bryant thinks of this shoe battle, it's unclear. He declined to talk to the media Friday for the third straight time after his ejection late in last Tuesday's 98-79 home loss to Milwaukee. The guard didn't talk after that game nor after a Thursday practice, which followed the Lakers being off Wednesday.

James said his shoe (right) costs $30 more than Bryant's (left) "Because it's LeBron's shoe."

Footwear aside, as far as there being a rivalry between James and Bryant, the Heat forward doesn't see it. This despite the two having combined to win the last three Most Valuable Player awards, Bryant getting the trophy in 2007-08 and James the past two years with Cleveland.

"No, I don't think so,'' James said of a rivalry existing with Bryant. "I think rivalries are created in the Finals, in the playoffs. We have never went against each other in that case.''

No, they haven't. Bryant has been in seven Finals, winning five. The only one James made it to, his Cavaliers fell in 2007 to San Antonio.

"It's got my name on it. I take pride in my shoes every year and I've always taken pride in having the best shoe. So they're going to cost a little more if you decide to wear them.''
-- LeBron James explains why his shoe costs more than Kobe Bryant's Now, James will be facing Bryant for the first time in a uniform other than Cleveland's. Of course, he has a much better supporting cast, namely fellow Heat stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

Wade sat out Thursday at Phoenix due to a sore left knee. But he went through practice Friday and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is hopeful he'll play.

"My plan is to play,'' Wade said. "I just want to continue to get better and continue to do my treatment therapy, but my plan is to play.''

Bryant will be matched against Wade. Still, plenty of fans will be more curious to see how Bryant fares as opposed to James.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson believes there's a rivalry between Bryant and James. He went so far as to say Bryant was trying to upstage James when Bryant announced he would become a free agent in the summer of 2004 on the day James was taken No. 1 by the Cavaliers in the 2003 draft.

"He took the headlines away from LeBron in a way,'' Jackson said. "So, obviously, I think he had him in his sights right off the bat. ... They managed to be teammates (for the 2008 Olympic team). They congratulated each other. (But) there's a deep competitive fervor going on between them, and that's natural. And that's just the way it's going to be.''

James, though, shrugged when asked if he believed Bryant was trying to take any headlines away from him 7 ½ years ago.

"I don't know,'' James said. "I have no idea.''

As for Jackson's take on James announcing his decision to leave Cleveland on the ESPN show "The Decision,'' Jackson said he didn't watch. But Jackson agreed with some of the criticism that has surfaced about James joining Wade and Bosh in the manner it happened.

"My thoughts after that is what Michael Jordan and some of the other guys would say, that they would never have done something like that,'' Jackson said. "They would have anticipated their team would have built up a talent so they could battle for the championship. So I think that's what kind of everybody expected is not too many players would have gone to the Finals like Cleveland did (in 2007 and) would lose a player in this manner. They'd want to redeem that opportunity or whatever. But that's his choice, and we'll all live with it.''

Trying to stop James on Saturday primarily will be the task of Lakers small forward Ron Artest. He's already got his strategy in order, and it seems like an odd one. But it is Artest we're talking about.

"I like to get him mad,'' Artest said. "He plays better when he's upset.''

Then why would Artest want to get James upset?

"It's best to get people's A game,'' Artest said. "That why I talk a lot of trash in the media. I just be myself. I think I was talking trash to (Vince Carter) one time. He got pretty upset and he played pretty well. It's good for the fans to see people's A game.''

Artest was invited then to say something that would make James upset. He said he'll let things "happen naturally'' and will "think of something'' Saturday.

"I think I just play better when I'm having fun,'' James said of Artest's claim he plays better when angry. "There's nothing (Artest) can say to me that can get me angry. If he was in the stands at Cleveland (when James made his return Dec. 2 to a hostile crowd), he could have made me angry.''

Artest, though, figures to make somebody very happy Saturday, when his championship ring from last season gets a new owner. He's auctioning off the ring for charity, and says about $600,000 has been raised so far.

James, as has been well documented, doesn't have a ring. If he ever wins one, James was asked if he would auction it off in a similar manner.

"Me, personally, I wouldn't,'' James said. "I'm not knocking what he did. I think he auctioned it off for a good cause. So any time you're thinking about someone in need, I have no problem with it. I don't think I would do it personally, but I don't think it was a bad thing to do either.''

For now, it's Bryant's Lakers who have hogged all the championship rings the past two seasons. But James still thinks his shoe is better than Bryant's.

Chris Tomasson can be reached at tomasson@fanhouse.com or on Twitter@christomasson

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Feeding Kids drive | Real meals bring real joy - Kansas City Star

Posted: 24 Dec 2010 08:12 PM PST

By LAURA BAUER

The Kansas City Star

JILL TOYOSHIBA/Kansas City Star

Fellow moms Sara Lewis (from left), Darci Woody and Anna King responded to a story about Teresa Hill with supplies, presents and a Christmas tree. Hill worried about feeding her household, including niece Michaiyah Shears, 9.

All Melanie Small wanted for her three children was pork chops, mashed potatoes and some green beans.

She wanted to sit down with her kids and eat a real meal. Not just a plate of noodles, which some nights is all she can afford, and some nights not even that.

In the two weeks since her story kicked off The Star's virtual food drive with Harvesters — and a challenge to feed hungry children in the area — Kansas Citians have reached out to help Small, a mom who works three jobs and still struggles to feed her kids.

Not anymore. Her freezer, which two weeks ago held only ice, some bread and beans, is full of meat, and a Cass County sheriff's sergeant soon will deliver deer steak, burgers and roast. Her once-bare cabinets are stuffed, and her dad just put up shelves in the basement to store more food. Her three children can have cereal every morning now, and Small has enough gift cards to buy food for months.

Kansas City wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

In a time when families struggle to pay their own bills and worry about their economic futures, readers gave to help others in greater need. And gave. And gave.

The giving ranged from delivering food for Small and other families to stocking food pantry shelves to donating anywhere from $5 to $3,600 to the virtual food drive.

By Friday evening, 1,647 people had given $217,436, more than eight times The Star's initial goal. It's the most money any virtual food drive for Harvesters has ever raised — enough to pay for weekend backpacks full of food for a thousand students for an entire school year.

Harvesters had to dedicate extra call takers and staffers to keep up with the virtual drive. People who had never volunteered asked how they could help. Others gave on top of what they'd already given this year.

That shows people are beginning to realize that children in the metro area are going hungry, said Karen Haren, Harvesters president and CEO.

"People don't believe it; they don't believe the numbers," Haren said. "But when you hear the stories it makes it more believable — these are real people. It brings it home to people."

Teresa Hill, a south Kansas City mom who has had a hard time paying the bills and feeding her son and niece and nephew, opened her door Wednesday to three other moms who dropped off a van full of food. They also brought presents for the whole family and a Christmas tree with all the decorations.

Ten moms got together to fill Hill's cabinets with food.

Hill's electricity was turned off a while ago, and a flame from the gas stove heated the kitchen as they unloaded.

"I didn't know what I was going to do for Christmas," Hill said. "Didn't know if I would be able to put peanut butter on a piece of bread. …It's a miracle, really."

•••

The giving continued. At schools across the area, people wanted to know how they could help hungry kids. In Warrensburg, Mo., people reached out to a little girl who had asked Santa for food. A man and his son dropped off hundreds of dollars worth of food for the pantry at East Hills Village, where Hill lives, because the dad thought the shelves looked too bare in a newspaper photo.

"He said, 'We thought you could use this to get you through the holidays,' " said Jessica Beha, services coordinator at East Hills, which is run by Phoenix Family Services.

After giving food or even presents, people often asked what else they could do.

"People are responding because this is as basic a need as you can have, the ability to eat," Haren said. "Kansas City is a caring community and a responsive community."

For some, it was the numbers they couldn't forget.

In the six-county metro area alone, an estimated 100,000 children live in homes where cupboards too often are bare, where the parents might not know where the next meal is coming from. One-third of those children live in extreme conditions where some days they go hungry.

And it's worse here than in most parts of the country. Missouri ranks fifth in the number of homes with unstable food supplies. Kansas comes in 12th.

Those numbers are haunting, said Danny O'Neill, founder of The Roasterie, a Kansas City-based coffee company. And ever since he read them, he knew he had to do something.

"I couldn't let loose of it," O'Neill said. "Just visualize your own kids being hungry or squirming in a chair because they can't concentrate. Oh, my God, you can't be a Kansas Citian and not think about it. You can't not do something."

So he did. He pledged $2,000 to the food drive and then challenged his entrepreneurial friends to do the same. By Friday evening, that crew alone had raised $14,500.

The Kansas Speedway and the Wyandotte County Community Foundation last week contributed $30,000.

The food drive will continue through Jan. 3. All money raised will support Harvesters' BackSnack program, which currently gives 10,000 children in the six-county area a pack of food every Friday during the school year to tide them over until Monday.

Harvesters estimates that an additional 20,000 children need the weekend food. It takes a community to raise that kind of money, not just one agency or one church.

Spreading awareness is part of the effort.

"I just didn't know," one caller said after reading nearly every story in the two-week series. "I didn't know that kids were going hungry. Now that I know, I'm going to step up. I'm going to do something."

That echoed across the area as people hurried to finish Christmas shopping but stopped to think of others.

Two Fridays ago, a distinguished-looking man showed up at Gladstone's Meadowbrook Elementary. He had read in the newspaper about a young girl caught stealing fruit snacks from another student because she didn't have enough food at home.

Staff and faculty at Meadowbrook have seen a growing number of students this year who come to school hungry. This man wanted to help.

"He said, 'I was raised poor, I was raised on a farm and I know what it's like to own one pair of shoes,' " recalled Kristen Smith, the school's community resource specialist.

He went on: "But I'm not poor anymore, and I thought this would help."

The man handed Smith a handful of $100 Walmart gift cards. Sixteen total.

"I cried," Smith said.

And later on that day, as she handed them out, one by one, to every one of the 16 families the school had adopted this Christmas, they cried, too.

•••

No one felt the kindness of Kansas City more than Small and Cindy Foreman, Phoenix Family services coordinator at Parvin Estates in the Northland, where Small and her children live.

The phones started ringing on Dec. 12, the morning her story ran, and they still ring. Foreman takes most of the calls. She helps organize drop-offs and is there during the day to take donations for Small while she's at work.

"It's so amazing, you just don't know," Foreman said, shaking her head and smiling. "People aren't worried about shopping and running around, they're not worried about themselves. They want to help. They want to give to someone who has less than them."

She stops and points a finger. "This is the true meaning of Christmas."

A couple from Smithville sent several boxes of food. Mostly healthy, with vegetables and meat — including pork chops — and butter and macaroni. Even sandwich bags. And there in the corner of one of the boxes was a bag of Oreos, a Christmas treat for the kids.

Someone bought shoes for Small's three children. Another women walked in with food and said that nearly 40 years ago, she was where Small is now. A single mom trying to make it and sometimes coming up short.

Today, she's doing well.

"It's the people that live everyday life, the people who know what it's like to struggle," Foreman said. "Some people are probably just scraping through themselves, but they want to help someone else."

Small's eyes lit up when she talked about that woman and her story from four decades ago.

"She knows what it's like," Small said. "It's heartwarming to know there's an end."

Both Foreman and Small smiled as they described the two men from Johnson County who came with a truckload of food and supplies. They had done the shopping themselves and spent more than three hours picking out food. Chicken nuggets, cereal for the kids (not just the healthy stuff but the fun stuff, too), plenty of meat and macaroni and cheese.

"They even bought fabric softener," Foreman said, starting to laugh. And before they left, they asked what else they could do.

That's when Foreman choked up.

She thought of one family in the complex with a mom who has advanced cancer. For some reason, no one adopted the family for Christmas and Foreman worried about fulfilling the children's list — which included gift certificates to Subway — and getting the family food and other things.

She hesitated, but then told the woman's story.

Each man handed Foreman $100.

"I lost it," Foreman said. "They didn't bat an eye when they handed me that money. It was like, 'It's Christmastime, here you go.' "

There seems no end to the stories.

One woman called Small and told her she was on food stamps and things were tight. But she had about $150 left she wanted Small to have.

Another older woman showed up with a small box of snacks.

"She said, 'This is all I can do, but I wanted to do something,' " Small said.

A community resource specialist from her kids' elementary school came to her door one night this week. He had bags of groceries in his hands, including lots of meat and canned goods.

Her story had touched him and his family, he told her.

"We did this in honor of the daughter we lost this year," he said, referring to their stillborn daughter. "Your kids are special and they deserve everything."

After he left, Small went back to sorting food. And she shook her head, trying to come up with the right words.

She's not used to all this. To people helping, people willing to sacrifice so she and her children can have food, even Christmas presents.

"I don't know how to say it," she said, unloading bag after bag of groceries, her kitchen counters already covered in boxes and cans. "I don't think 'thank you' is enough.

"Unless you've been in that situation … you just don't know the relief I feel."

Or the joy, as she and her children sat down Thursday night, with presents from strangers under the tree and dinner on the table.

A real meal.

Pork chops, mashed potatoes and green beans.

RISE TO THE CHALLENGE

•You can still join The Star's virtual food drive with Harvesters. Go to feedingkckids.harvesters.org to make a tax-deductible donation to support the BackSnack program for kids. The campaign will continue through Jan. 3, and an updated list of dedications will appear at KansasCity.com the following week.

To reach Laura Bauer, call 816-234-4944 or send e-mail to lbauer@kcstar.com.

Kids Shoes

Saturday, December 25, 2010