Could LeBron James run a faster 40 than Manti Te’o?

Manti Te’o was hoping to put some of the talk about his fake girlfriend to rest with a solid performance at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, but his performance in the 40-yard dash on Monday threw a kink in those plans. Te’o posted a time of 4.82, and like most of us LeBron James was not impressed.

According to the South Florida SunSentinel’s Ira Winderman, some of the Miami Heat players were discussing the Combine in the locker room on Tuesday before their game against the Sacramento Kings. LeBron claimed that he ran a 4.6 while training last summer and noted that he did it without training for the 40.

“It’s better than Manti Te’o,” LeBron said. “I’ll tell you that.”

What do you think? My gut instinct tells me LeBron is probably faster than Te’o, but have a look at the following clip just to give you some sort of idea:

Based on our very unofficial calculation, King James went about 75 feet in 3.6 seconds in the clip you see above. If you extrapolate that to 120 feet — or a 40-yard dash — that would give LeBron a 40 time of 5.77. That’s incredibly slow, but it looked like LeBron barely even had to try to spring free and catch that pass from Wade. He was clearly slowing to attack the basket and didn’t appear to be running full out. If he can get 5.77 with little effort, I’d be willing to be he could shave a second off that time if he actually gave it his all in a 40-yard sprint. Advantage: LeBron.

As for Te’o, his draft stock will likely fall even further after the lack of speed he displayed, despite the fact that he insists Monday was just a “long day” and that he usually runs the 40 in about 4.5 or 4.6 seconds. It was bad enough for the former Notre Dame linebacker that he has had to answer nonstop questions about the unfortunate hoax he fell victim to. His uninspiring 40 time could lead to even more headaches.

Photo credit: Brian Spurlock/USA Today Sports