Jordan schools LeBron on ‘Net

Have you heard the one about no great thing being created suddenly?

Tom Hinueber must agree.

It took him 45 minutes.

“I was just kind of bored on a Tuesday with nothing else to do, so I slapped it together and threw it out there,” he said. “I had no idea it would take off like this.”

Cleveland hosts Miami in a regular-season NBA game tonight like, well, none that has come before. LeBron James made a decision in July that changed the league’s landscape and his reputation forever.

Now he gets to go home and pay for it with a reception one might have seen had the Hatfield family stumbled upon a holiday dinner hosted by the McCoys.

There isn’t a basketball fan alive without an opinion about James departing Cleveland for South Beach.

Mostly, they go like this: James is a selfish, egotistical, arrogant blowhard who lost all sense of class and perspective.

Or something along those lines.

Hinueber wouldn’t argue the above description and recently used his talents to make a statement about all that is LeBron.

A film student at UNLV, the 21-year-old who grew up with a poster of Michael Jordan on his wall took to his YouTube account and created a one-minute, 13-second clip that has been stolen and copied so much the last week that Hinueber estimates page views now total around 4 million.

“I was in Chicago for Thanksgiving and looked after dinner and there had been 8,000 views,” he said. “Then I drove to a mall an hour down the road, and by the time I got there, it was at 30,000 … . I think (the video) hits the nail on the head about what everyone was feeling, not only about LeBron, but everything in general when it came to the Heat. That they’re playing poorly probably helps also.”

The clip is a mixture of two of Nike’s most famous basketball commercials, one made for Jordan years ago titled “Maybe,” and the other for James titled “Rise,” which debuted early last month.

Hinueber’s offering is called, “Maybe You Should Rise,” and in it Jordan’s words are pointed directly at James as if he is answering all the questions the Heat star poses to the public in his commercial.

It is a terrific piece that says what so many basketball fans would if addressing James, that while many of them would probably prefer he disappear (one of his questions in “Rise”), one thing everyone would have hoped for as he debated switching teams was a lot less pretense and a lot more humility.

It is amazing what grabs our interest and pushes our buttons and extracts our deepest passions. James did all that and more to sports fans over the summer like few athletes in history, and now a local film student mashes film for 45 minutes and Internet eyes chase and download it in record fashion. One of Jordan’s sons even tweeted about the video.

“It almost doesn’t feel like it’s mine anymore,” said Hinueber, son of Mark Hinueber, vice president and general counsel of Stephens Media Group. “I suppose the more times it is stolen and viewed, the harder it would be for Nike to find me. I guess I would tell them, ‘Please don’t sue me …’ I don’t think they have plans to come after me. This is all free advertising for them. People root for the villain as much as they do the hero.”

Nike should come after him all right — to inquire when he is graduating and suggest he one day work for the most famous swoosh in sports. Hinueber, who grew up in Arkansas and Las Vegas and attended one year of college in Chicago before transferring to UNLV, expects to earn his degree next year. He would like to make movies. What film student wouldn’t?

Miami officials actually considered not playing James if they weren’t convinced that security would be tight enough around him. That’s how much others despise James now, how much he is loathed in the city where he played seven NBA seasons.

“When I first saw the (‘Rise’ commercial), I thought it seemed pretentious,” Hinueber said. “I’ve always been a Michael Jordan fan, and it seemed like his commercial was not only talking to LeBron, but to a new generation of NBA players who make millions of dollars but don’t have the work ethic or put in the time to become great.

“That was the idea behind my video.”

Four million views later, he has made quite a statement.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday and Thursday on “Monsters of the Midday,” Fox Sports Radio 920 AM.