SIDELINE CUT:New Jersey Nets star Devin Harris proved the unsuspecting fall guy as a young Londoner became the most-watched player in the world-at least for one week, writes Keith Duggan

THE STRANGE and instant sporting fame achieved by Stuart Tanner this week must surely have left the marketing and advertising slickers scratching their heads. You can spend millions on a clever promotional campaign but nothing will top the power of a story or a piece of film that gets straight to the heart of the matter.

Tanner is a Londoner who, over the last decade, had a cult following as a talented "street" basketball player, glorying in the limitless extent of trickery and flashy moves that the improvised, undisciplined playground culture creates.

Earlier this week, two worlds collided when Tanner had the temerity to challenge a highly regarded NBA star, Devin Harris, to a quick game of one-on-one at an outdoor court in London. Harris was in England as a member of the New Jersey Nets, who were playing in the O2 Arena as part of the NBA's pre-season exhibition tours in Europe. For some reason, the American affably accepted the challenge, and so began the two minutes of his sporting life he may end up regretting the most.

It was to be a short game, the first to two baskets, and, after flinging an awkward kind of shot over the NBA star that swished through the net, the Englishman got the ball back and, spurred on by a few disbelieving spectators, he proceeded to put the moves on Harris, twice crossing the ball through his legs at speed and then bouncing the ball through Harris's legs, blowing past him, collecting the ball and making a reverse lay-up at the other end.

Needless to say, several audience members were recording the challenge on phone video for posterity and it was posted on YouTube by the time Harris had got back to his hotel - by Tanner's brother Greg, among others. In the lightning speed of Web gossip, the video became a source of global fascination, with three million views on YouTube and "Stuart Tanner" becoming the second-most popular search term on Google during the week. As word spread, mainstream television networks began showing the clip, the sports chaps at Sky News engaging in the kind of pitiful struggle for hip credibility not seen since the heyday of David Brent as they talked about the nobody who "embarrassed" one of the untouchable young princes of basketball.

"And swoosh," they harrumphed, "straight into the net!"

The mass attraction of Tanner's match-up against Harris was that it placed an Everyman against one of the elite few. Harris earns about €4 million per season as point guard with New Jersey and enjoys the privileges and perks that come with being a rising star in the NBA. Tanner showed up to see Harris as a fan and, in the video, he is wearing denim jeans and trainers, attire that greatly enhances the popular fantasy of a nobody emerging from the crowd to best the superstar.

It was, of course, an absolutely no-win situation for the NBA man. For a start, his motivation in wanting to beat Tanner was absolutely zero - and it showed in the half-hearted shot he threw up at the beginning of the video. Worse, if he crouched down and played any sort of intense D against the upstart, he would have risked looking like a bully. It is probably true he had no idea Tanner possessed the skills he does - he is skinny, white and did not, in drainpipe jeans, appear particularly athletic.

But in the underground world of English basketball, Tanner is something of a celebrity - he was singled out by the English-born NBA player Luol Deng as the only one of his compatriots he would pay to watch play.

So Harris's antennae were not on full alert, and for Tanner's first score he defended the Englishman much as an adult would defend against a child. But he was genuinely startled by the quick flourish of dribbling skills Tanner then confronted him with and was caught flat-footed in that immortal second he was nutmegged. Now that the video has become famous, it is likely to be the subject of much mirth among his NBA team-mates.

Harris could not have been more gracious afterwards, putting his arm around his victor and congratulating him and basically being what the English would call a good sport - which is probably why he finds himself in the situation in the first place. He was more anxious about not coming across as the "big-shot" than worrying about his reputation.

If Tanner had dared to nutmeg the great Michael Jordan in a similar situation, he probably would have found himself hitting the pavement at great speed seconds later and might have come round on a dentist's chair. Not that Jordan would ever have deigned to match up against a fan in the first place.

However, it all leaves Harris blushing, because the camera never lies. It hardly matters that Harris is a thriving point guard who was placed second in the NBA for steals in his debut season - a statistic that points to his devastating speed. Nor does it matter a jot that Greg Tanner has stated those dreamy few seconds of triumph for his kid brother did not even remotely begin to prove the Englishman was in any way a better ball player than Harris. But Tanner did score an indelible victory for street-ball culture.

For decades, the playground game has had a cast of characters whose lives read like morality plays. The NBA may have been the place for glory and wealth, but the most enigmatic folk heroes in basketball have been those who never escaped the inner-city asphalt courts. On the night Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired after a glittering NBA career, the bean-pole centre was asked on television about the greatest player he had ever played with or against. After thinking for a few moments, Jabbar said: "If I had to limit it to one, it would have to be 'the Goat'."

He was talking about Earl "the Goat" Manigault, widely acknowledged as the greatest player never to sign an NBA contract. The Goat was a shade over six feet, but among his favourite tricks was to dunk the ball twice while in mid-air, and the most popular legend about him was that he could leap to retrieve coins or dollar bills placed on the top of the blackboard. Whether that was actually true is hardly the point: the romance in it lies in the fact that it either did or did not happen on some half-forgotten, searing day decades ago and has become irrefutably true in the minds of those who want to believe it could happen.

Unheard music is sweeter, as they say. And there were no video-phones or cameras to testify to the singular, doomed brilliance of The Goat - who succumbed to the predictable lures of narcotics before turning his life around and dedicating his later days to preventing similarly disadvantaged kids from falling off the edge, a ghetto catcher in the rye.

There are many instances of street-ball players with a repertoire of skills their more conventional NBA counterparts could not match - but only in the US cities. The sensational thing about this example is that the street-baller was English and his two minutes of audacity earned the visiting NBA team far greater exposure than their exhibition games. Harris may have breached rules in stepping down to play ball with the common folk, but the NBA folks will hardly mind: there is no such thing as bad publicity.

If Tanner's great moment had not been captured on film, then ESPN would not have sought an interview with him. But it is the kind of story that would have travelled over time, coloured and exaggerated until it became more brilliant in the minds of those willing and wanting to believe it than the reality could ever be. But instead he has the more instant gratification of being the most watched ball-player in the world - at least for a week.