NBA Bans LeBron's "Batman" Mask

Earlier this week, LeBron James returned from a brief, injury-related hiatus and put up some big numbers against the Knicks, hoping to put himself back on top of the league's Most Valuable Player conversation, which is essentially narrowed to just James and Kevin Durant. He did so wearing a custom, black, carbon-fiber mask to protect his freshly-broken nose that not only looked a little like Batman's from the forehead down, but also kind of sounds exactly like the one from Batman Begins when you describe it that way. "Always wanted to save Gotham City from the corruption, criminals and untrustworthy that brings the city down!" James joked on Instagram just yesterday, hashtagging it: #SuperHeroThoughts #SignalInTheAir#ImBatman #StriveForGreatness He wasn't the first, of course; the night the mask debuted, hundreds of Batman and "Basketball Zorro" tweets flooded Twitter. Well, it looks like the Dark Knight's retired now, as the National Basketball Association says James has to wear a conventional, clear plastic mask if he wants to play through the broken nose. USA Today reports that the NBA did not approve the mask James wore against the Knicks, and the league has previously forced other players to abandon solid black masks. Rumors in February that James would star in a second Space Jam film from Warner Bros. -- the studio that owns DC Entertainment and by extension Batman -- were denied by James's camp, although the producer named in the report seemingly confirmed via Twitter that the film was in fact in development. [Note: the image above has been edited to remove objectionable language in the comments thread.]