Over the past couple days, while this summer's LeBron James fallout continued, thanks to quotes in GQ that some people said plunged him deeper into an egomaniac vortex, the underground Internet buzz was about something different and, perhaps, more trivial. Twitter and the blogosphere were immediately stuck on these painted-on, white-skinny jeans GQ bamboozled LeBron into rocking for an otherwise chic photo shoot.

Courtesy of ESPN The Magazine

The fashion mag photo shoot is always a risky venture for athletes who have reps, auras and credibility at stake. If they get a little too in the moment of the role-playing that these shoots foster, they can end up being the butt of jokes for several news cycles. There's no way that, say, when Tiger Woods was bare-chested, lifting weights in a skully like he's on a penitentiary yard, he wasn't thinking, "Something's wrong here. I feel like I'm in a late '90s DMX photo shoot for The Source." Maybe he even said it out loud. And guess what famed photographer Annie Leibovitz probably said to him? "Trust me."

More than a few athletes have been getting caught out there recently, even if it's just one photo out of a dozen. Mark Sanchez was just a little too "Zoolander" in his GQ photo shoot. Months later, GQ -- which seems to have a fetish for putting ballers in tight white jeans  had Bulls point guard Derrick Rose -- maybe the shyest star in the NBA -- lose himself enough to come off like he was auditioning for Chicagoland emo band Fall Out Boy. The "trust me" scam gets the best of them. It's probably how, a couple years ago, GQ even got 50 Cent to look like a Chip-N-Dale dancer. That wasn't as bad as Ricky Williams in a wedding dress, tying the knot with Mike Ditka.

Remember the Los Angeles Times Magazine's "White Hot Kobe" this past spring? He got clowned on Twitter, podcasts, blogs -- everywhere. Embarrassed, he resorted to awkwardly spinning the ordeal for Charles Barkley -- who trusted Sports Illustrated enough to allow himself to be photographed as a runaway slave -- and Kenny Smith as they snickered. The problem was that he trusted stylist James Valeri more than Sasha Vujacic.

"I wanted to give a modern approach. I was thinking of [rapper] Tupac [Shakur], where I put a band underneath in the hat to make it look hip-hop," Valeri explained to the Los Angeles Times. "It's mixing the inspiration of Tupac and a gentleman with a white hat."

Tupac or Ben Vereen?

Trust your gut, homeboys. When a photog says "trust me," throw on some sweats and head for the exit.