(Editor’s note: Welcome back to The Athletic NBA 75. We’re re-running our top 40 players to count down every day from Sept. 8-Oct. 17, the day before the opening of the 2022-23 NBA season. This piece was first published on Feb. 17, 2022.)
In the bowels of Miami’s FTX Arena on a Sunday afternoon last month, the brick walls and concrete floor shook with treble and bass, drowning out the “bombs bursting in air” from the national anthem singer practicing on the court a couple of hours before the game.
Down a side hallway, with rap music blaring to the point his speakers were vibrating, LeBron James tossed a medicine ball against the wall. A man who is a foot shorter than LeBron, and considerably lighter, leaned against one of James’ tree-trunk legs with all his might to stretch a hamstring.
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The thud of the ball crashing against the brick or a grunt from James as his trainer put him through another conditioning drill were the only things that could pierce the noise from James’ music.
Miami was, but is no longer James’ home. The league is still his kingdom, though. And he plays his music as loud as he likes. He scored 33 with 11 boards in a Laker loss that day.
Two nights later and 1,300 miles to the north, the crowd in the Barclays Center could sense it.
In the middle of the third quarter, LeBron finished a layup. Two possessions later, he drained a 21-footer. Next time down the court, a 20-footer splashed from his right hand.
Fans were there presumably to root for the home-team Brooklyn Nets, but after nearly two decades of watching LeBron do this, they knew what was coming. There was an audible, noticeable stir from the patrons, the kind of stirring we used to hear after two or three tough consecutive jumpers from Michael Jordan, or maybe consecutive fadeaways from Kobe Bryant, or similar to what we hear now after a string of 3-pointers from Steph Curry.
James finished his third quarter with a 26-foot bomb. When he re-entered the game in the fourth, the crowd’s anticipation from earlier was justified. He stole the ball. He drove in for a thunderous slam. He stole another. Crushed another dunk. For good measure, he blocked the Nets’ next shot.
When that game was over, not only did the Lakers defeat Brooklyn easily, but also LeBron finished with 33 points, seven rebounds, six assists and enough highlights for anyone in attendance to remember this night five, 10 or even 20 years later and say, “I saw LeBron do that.”
LeBron Raymone James is not only a living NBA legend. He is still playing. At 37 years old and 19 seasons in, he’s still dominating. He’s averaging 29 points per game, the most for him since the 2009-10 season.
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He remains the ultimate showman. According to the Action Network, a sports betting and analytics company, LeBron is still the NBA’s most marketable player.
James collects milestones by the week, as he barrels toward the highest individual achievement in pro basketball — becoming the all-time leading scorer.
LeBron is, according to The Athletic’s voting panel of NBA experts, the second-greatest player ever. Which makes him, arguably, the greatest ever. All time. Through 75 history-rich seasons. From Akron, Ohio, to the top of the world.
For years, as James stockpiled NBA Most Valuable Player trophies in Cleveland and Miami, and championships in Miami, Cleveland and Los Angeles, we’ve watched him score like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, pass like Magic and captivate like Jordan. We’ve known how good LeBron is.
We’ve known since before the Cavs drafted him No. 1 in 2003 that he was special. While he continues to make memories on the Lakers, every other member of The Athletic’s all-time list inside the top 12 is retired.
For years, the debate has been Michael or LeBron? LeBron loses that one more than he wins, but he still has the chance to change more minds. Either way, he has been so great, for so long, LeBron has elevated himself to the most rarefied air in NBA history, and we know he’s been there for quite some time.
Maybe the only question is, does LeBron know?
“No, I don’t,” James said with a pause, as he walked through the loading docks at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center.
“One thing that I do know is that I am gifted, and I put in the work to be as great as I can be on the floor,” he said. “And I understand that through time and commitment and dedication that I put myself in position to be mentioned with some of the greats that ever played basketball, period. Not just in the NBA, but period.”
- The Athletic has launched a new narrative podcast series, “A King’s Reign”, which takes a look inside LeBron’s legacy.
LeBron’s résumé is staggering. Of course, it is, and some of it is hard to nail down because he’s still stockpiling statistics. He is the third player in history with 36,000 points, but when you add in his postseason scoring total, no one has scored more NBA points. Not even Kareem. Barring injury, James is about two years from chasing down Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time, regular-season scoring record of 38,387 points — a record that has stood for 33 years.
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“That’s a record that seemed like nobody was ever going to catch him, and the only one who probably is going to catch him if he decides to play another two years or three years will be LeBron,” said Heat president Pat Riley, who coached Abdul-Jabbar on the Lakers and brought LeBron to Miami.
James also is nearing 10,000 assists for his career. He’s seventh on the all-time list, but, LeBron is the only player to be in the top 10 all-time in scoring and assists. And it isn’t close. He was the NBA’s scoring champ (30.0 points per game) in 2007-08 at age 23 and led the league in assists (10.2) in 2019-20 at age 35.
He’s played the third-most regular-season minutes in league history. Add in his playoff minutes, and no one has played more NBA basketball than LeBron.
He surpassed Jordan in 2017 as the NBA’s all-time postseason scoring leader. He is the only player in the game’s history to score more than 7,000 points in the playoffs. The next-closest active player, Kevin Durant, hasn’t even reached 4,500 points.
James has four MVP awards and can make a decent case for at least one or two more. The only players with more are Jordan, Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell. He has a chance to finish top 30 in rebounds, top five in assists and No. 1 in scoring.
And finally — except, well, we could go on for hours with various statistical gems from James or the countless playoff games he’s won by doing the unthinkable — there are the rings.
LeBron has four of them on three different teams. He is the only player in history to “lead” three franchises to titles. He also competed in eight consecutive NBA Finals, a feat no one had accomplished since the great Celtics teams of the 1960s. He has made more coaches and more journeyman role players richer beyond their wildest dreams, just by taking them along for the ride.
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“The guy was a pass-first guy, a guy who always wants to get teammates involved, make your teammates look good, get every coach he’s ever played with, get them paid,” said Tyronn Lue, the LA Clippers coach who won a championship with LeBron in Cleveland. “And then, turn around and look up and he’s about to be the all-time leading scorer in NBA history? Yeah.”
We have yet to mention his skill as a defender, or that for all the buckets and all the passes throughout his storied career, LeBron’s signature play was a block. Nor have we discussed how LeBron changed how free agents negotiate contracts, how athletes market themselves and how they become business moguls while still playing. Oh, and he built a school, a public institution for Akron’s inner-city children, and is sending them to college.
It is a legacy unmatched. And he is still adding to it.
“I would say that’s probably the greatest moment for me, just being able to, no matter the circumstances, no matter the end of the season results, I guess, always just being a pretty cool-ass teammate,” he said.
The last NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland was in 1997, which coincided with the league’s celebration of its 50 greatest players. LeBron, a 12-year-old at the time living 40 miles south in an Akron apartment with his mother, remembers watching All-Star weekend on TV. Bryant, then an 18-year-old rookie, won the Slam Dunk Contest. Jordan posted a triple-double with 14 points, 11 boards and 11 assists in 26 minutes; Miami’s Glenn Rice was MVP with 26 points off the bench.
James needed not only to grow to 6-foot-8, stay out of trouble and fulfill his dream of being drafted into the NBA, but also to get great and stay there for 19 seasons to be able to play in the next All-Star Game in Cleveland, which is Sunday. His 18 All-Star selections trail only Abdul-Jabbar’s record of 19.
“I remember it was the greatest 50 at that point in time, and just to be able to kind of be around my backyard and that area and me having 11 great seasons there … it’s an honor,” James said.
On June 26, 2003, basketball in Cleveland — and the NBA — changed forever. It was draft night, and taking James with the first pick was a formality for the Cavaliers. But as soon as the Cavs had their franchise-changer in hand, LeBron made a promise. He said, “I’m going to light up Cleveland like Las Vegas.”
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He did, and the whole league is still brighter because of him. But the path from rookie sensation to one of two of the greatest ever wasn’t always easy for LeBron.
“He had skills,” remembered Steve Nash, now the Nets coach who was in Year 8 of his storied playing career when LeBron was a rookie. “He hadn’t become the fully formed version, but right away, just his ability, size, strength, speed, agility, quickness, ability to handle the ball, pass and finish at the basket … and transition, he was out of this world. So immediately, you’re struck by how different he was as an athlete.”
James graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, and his games were on national television while he was in high school. He was already part of the “Be Like Mike” generation. He wore No. 23 and shot fadeaways with a leg sleeve folded over so the red was exposed. He wore black and red shoes and pulled a wristband halfway up his forearm. But when Nike handed him a $90 million shoe deal before he ever played a game, there was no turning back from the constant comparisons to Jordan.
LeBron was the NBA’s heir apparent, and in the early days of his career, as it appeared he was going to live up to the hype, the players James idolized as a child didn’t embrace him back.
“The road for LeBron was just as hard, if not harder than the road was for Michael,” said Rich Paul, LeBron’s agent and longtime friend. “For a number of reasons. And I think the biggest reason is, everyone wants you to do something the way somebody else did it previously.
“LeBron was a kid. (The media) wanted LeBron to be like Mike; they wanted Michael to speak to them in any capacity, which he probably didn’t. They wanted Michael to be his friend, which he probably wasn’t. They also wanted LeBron to act like, be like Michael, and he wasn’t.
“There were more people that smiled and hoped LeBron failed than there ever was rooting for him to succeed in the beginning.”
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LeBron didn’t make the All-Star Game his rookie year, which he considered a snub. He was named NBA Rookie of the Year with 78 of 118 possible first-place votes. The Cavs missed the playoffs his first two years, and coach Paul Silas was fired.
From there, LeBron’s career has been stocked with seminal moments. There were the 25 consecutive points he scored to beat the Pistons in Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference finals and paving the way for James and the Cavs to reach their first NBA Finals.
There was the buzzer-beating 3-pointer in Game 2 of the 2009 conference finals against Orlando.
There was Game 6 of the 2012 conference finals against Boston while he was with the Heat. A loss in that series after losing in the NBA Finals the season before to the Mavericks likely would’ve led to mass changes in Miami, and the big three era would’ve been deemed a catastrophe.
Instead, James responded with 45 points and 15 rebounds in TD Garden for one of the finest playoff games in his glistening career. The Heat closed out Boston in Game 7 before ultimately winning James’ first championship.
“You knew with LeBron what he was gonna be,” former Celtics and current 76ers coach Doc Rivers said. “I guess back then … it was more trying to not allow him to be that yet. I just felt like once he got it, it was gonna be tough to stop.
“We had a hell of a team, and he was just LeBron. He is always LeBron. You knew once he got one, he is gonna get others.”
Another title came in Miami the following season. Then, there was his time in Cleveland. Taking a 2-1 series lead over Golden State in the 2015 NBA Finals, when the Cavs were down Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. The never-been-done comeback from a 3-1 Finals deficit against the Warriors in 2016, securing a first NBA championship for Cleveland with a triple-double, and “The Block” in Game 7.
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That one, in 2016, winning for the Cavs, was supposed to cement his legacy. But adding a fourth championship with the storied Lakers in a never-happened-before NBA bubble at Disney World in Orlando either added to it or at least fortified his legacy from the wear and tear of every athlete’s inevitable decline.
LeBron, inarguably, is a little slower than he used to be, but his game is still great (as of this writing, averaging 29.1 points, 7.9 rebounds, 6.5 assists). But his body has not held up for him in Los Angeles. This is the third season of the last four where he’s missed at least 15 games because of injury. The Lakers missed the playoffs his first year, were relegated to the Play-In Tournament last season and are, as of this writing, 27-31 and ninth in the Western Conference standings.
James also played a major role in the trade many point to as the primary reason for the Lakers’ struggles this season. He helped arrange the trade that brought Russell Westbrook from the Wizards — and, it’s gone poorly.
These are the facts at the moment but they are footnotes. LeBron and the Lakers can theoretically turn it around, this season or next. And if they don’t, well, James’ stint with the Lakers has already been more successful than Jordan’s last stretch was in Washington.
When LeBron is in uniform for the Lakers, he is still their best, most important player, by a comfortable margin. At this age, and after all these miles.
“He’s the lion in the locker room and always being very, very attentive in everything you’re doing,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “And that carries over to the rest of the group.”
Killer. Instinct.
The scarlet letter on James’ record is more like a scarlet number. He has as many losses in the NBA Finals as Jordan has championships: six. Jordan’s perfect 6-0 mark in the NBA Finals, along with the matching six NBA Finals MVPs, is likely a large factor in why James finished at No. 2 on The Athletic’s list.
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James’ 4-6 NBA Finals record has been his anchor in these debates while overlooking the fact that he made eight consecutive trips to the championship series. But this idea that LeBron was not the maniacal, winner-take-all killer that Michael was predates any NBA Finals trips and traces back to Game 1 of the 2007 Eastern Conference finals against the Pistons. LeBron had the ball late with a chance to win, but instead of taking the shot, he passed to a wide-open Donyell Marshall in the corner, who missed a 3. The stigma has stuck ever since.
But Lue disagrees.
“Whenever (LeBron’s) back’s against the wall, he always produces,” said Lue, who played with Jordan late in his career in Washington before coaching James in Cleveland. “You have to have a killer instinct to be able to do that. Just because you’re not talking stuff, and you’re not in people’s face … I just don’t understand. Why does that mean you don’t have a killer instinct?”
Reaching the championship round is a war of attrition and an exhaustive grind. The only player who took his team to more consecutive NBA Finals was Russell, who took the Celtics 10 straight years (and won nine of them). Russell retired after 13 seasons at 34.
How would the aura around Jordan change if he beat the Pistons earlier in his career and lost in the NBA Finals? Why does he get credit for not reaching the NBA Finals when LeBron is punished for advancing further but not winning it all?
James’ team was the favorite and lost only once, to Dallas, in what was easily the worst NBA Finals performance of his career. James has been the underdog in six of his 10 NBA Finals appearances. Still, the knock on James is that he doesn’t possess the same ruthless mentality and obsession to win like Jordan.
LeBron also has been pilloried through his career, though more so earlier than later, for team hopping.
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“The Decision,” his hour-long special that announced his decision to leave Cleveland for Miami in 2010, is widely viewed as a public-relations disaster, despite the money it raised for the Boys & Girls Club of America. He was crushed in Miami for the way he returned to Cleveland in 2014.
Riley, who was initially furious at James’ decision to leave Miami, eventually understood why.
“I thought it was the most normal thing for him to do,” Riley said. “Somewhere in your life, you have to clean up something and be able to move on. I always felt that even after he left Cleveland and came to Miami for professional reasons, he’s going to have to go back to his hometown one day, or he’s going to have a scarlet letter on him for the rest of his life.
“So that’s a pretty damn courageous thing that he did and selfless thing to go back to Cleveland, to rebuild that team. Had he never done that, there was a possibility that he’d have a hard time being accepted there.
“He did the right thing.”
James changed the way the NBA, especially its stars, thought of free agency. He’s changed teams three times that way, and by the time he left Cleveland again for the Lakers, there were maybe a few eye rolls, but virtually no vitriol. Until he won a title for the Cavs, the way he left the first time — on national TV, in a one-hour special — was a stain on his legacy. But even that has changed.
“Guess what? Every kid you see today is doing what? ‘Taking their talents’ somewhere,” Paul said. “They’re doing TV shows at high schools today. That’s all LeBron. Guys wanting to test free agency. That’s all LeBron.”
LeBron revolutionized NBA contracts by manipulating service-time extensions to maximize his value and potential earnings in free agency. The league set up its system so stars would be enticed to stay on their original teams by the ability to earn the highest salaries from those teams. LeBron proved that system weak by foregoing the ultimate earning power for shorter deals, giving himself flexibility and the ability to apply pressure to the front office to stay competitive.
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James grew so powerful as a product pitchman that he began commanding ownership stakes in the products he endorsed. He has a lifetime contract with Nike. Now, he is a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox. And he owns his major production agency — SpringHill Company.
James became a savvy businessman without attending college. Think about these things the next time you see a player hold his team’s feet to the fire the offseason before free agency, or the next time Durant or Curry produce a TV documentary, or the next prep star hosts his decision special on a live stream.
“I think he’ll be appreciated more when he’s done,” Paul said. “I think when you play in the game, it becomes more difficult for those who are playing with you — whether they’re your peers or once looked up to you — to give you your flowers.”
On the night of his greatest achievement, James sat at the podium exhausted and unburdened, the heavy yoke of expectations and unfulfilled promises replaced by a singular championship net snipped from the rim and dangled from his neck. With his three small children by his side, James was equal parts elated and relieved as he recited the list of past Cleveland sports failures that no longer mattered.
“I remember seeing how incredibly emotional LeBron was during the trophy ceremony,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “Delivering a championship to Cleveland and Northeast Ohio was deeply meaningful to him, and he and the Cavaliers had accomplished it in historic fashion.
“LeBron is already one of the greatest and most influential athletes of all time. But there’s no doubt in my mind that his legacy, whenever he stops playing, will transcend basketball and the NBA.”
For all of his magnificent accomplishments, for the millions in endorsements he has earned, for the school he has built, the championships won and the league he has reshaped, James’ singular greatest basketball achievement will forever be what he did for his hometown in 2016.
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A cursed city on the shores of a lake named Erie that birthed a river called Chagrin, James stared down five decades of failure, defeat and soared above it all.
No matter what championships came before or since that was the only trophy accompanied by his tears. Exasperated by the toll necessary to slay ghosts and demons alike, James wept on the floor after the Cavaliers beat the Warriors in a breathtaking Game 7 for the city’s first pro sports championship in 52 years.
His penchant for jumping from franchise to franchise comes with an opportunity cost: Where is home?
Where is the fan base that will love him unconditionally? Like Chicago does Jordan. Like Los Angeles does Shaq, Kobe, Kareem and Magic. Like Boston does Bird and Russell.
Where is LeBron’s home? It isn’t Miami, where he only spent four years and where sports fandom ranks somewhere well below South Beach, sunshine and nightlife. It isn’t Los Angeles, where his initial reception was chilly and where he still hasn’t been completely embraced, even though he delivered a title.
It should be Cleveland, where he spent the majority of his career, ended the championship drought and where he has done so much for the region. He was born a stone’s throw away.
Winning with the Cavs was such a powerful moment in James’ legacy — and the NBA’s history — that it is said to have elicited a phone call from Jordan. Not to LeBron; the two were never close.
As the parade celebrating James’ third championship and the first he delivered to the most abused sports city in America rolled through Cleveland, producer and documentarian Michael Tollin, was in Charlotte, N.C., to pitch a project to Jordan.
“The universe has such a funny sense of humor,” Tollin told ESPN. “Because when I woke up, I put on ESPN while I’m getting dressed, and there’s LeBron (James) and the Cavaliers parading through the streets of Cleveland with the trophy that they’d just won.”
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That’s quite a coincidence. Using footage shot by NBA Entertainment in 1997 and ’98, “The Last Dance,” the 10-part series reminding everyone of Jordan’s greatness, eventually premiered in 2020.
Jordan can feel James’ breath on the back of his neck.
Career stats#: G: 1,351, Pts.: 27.1, Reb.: 7.5 Ast.: 7.4, FG%: 50.5, FT%: 73.4, Win Shares: 248.3, PER: 27.4
#Through Feb. 17, 2022
The Athletic NBA 75 Panel points: 1,107 | Hollinger GOAT Points*: 847.7
Achievements: NBA MVP (2009, ’10, ’12, ’13), 17-time All-NBA, 18-time All-Star, NBA champ (’12, ’13, ’16, ’20), Finals MVP (’12, ’13, ’16, ’20), Rookie of the Year (’04), Scoring champ (’08), Assists champ (’20), Olympic gold (’08, ’12), NBA 75th Anniversary team (’21)
*Through Feb. 17, 2022
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(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic; Photo: Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images)