On an April night back in 2003 at the MCI Center, I sat courtside to watch a baton passed unwillingly from the former king to the future King.
An 18-year-old LeBron James used an array of circus shots and sensational dunks en route to 34 points at the Jordan Capital Classic.
And up in a skybox, wearing a garish jersey from his clothing line and flanked by Warren Sapp and Patrick Ewing, a shadowy figure glared down at the teenager set to inherit his crown.
I’ve talked about it often – that night in February 2003 when I sat under the basket in Trenton to witness a high school LeBron James streaking across the sky, two very definitive things occurred to me.
The first was that I finally had my own Jordan. Someone to follow from the start – from before the start. I was too young when MJ started, so I didn’t fully appreciate the phenomenon of his career until very late in the game. I wouldn’t make that mistake here.
And at the very same moment, I looked around me and realized that I had already lost him, partially to my own whims, which mirrored those around me.
A while back, I tossed around the idea of suggesting here that LeBron James hold a live pay-per-view special at midnight on July 1 to announce his intentions. I didn’t write it since it was obviously flawed thinking – after all, he clearly had to sit through a half-dozen bluster-filled presentations before he could come to a decision he probably knew to begin with.
But it turns out I wasn’t so far off. I was just a week early.
Remember a few days ago, when ESPN and the rest of the national media was saying the Knicks would get shut out in free agency?
So much for that. But we’ll get to that in a minute.
Last night truly felt like New Year’s Eve. When the clock flipped over to midnight, and the calendar moved to a new day and month, LeBron James became available for any team to attempt to sign. There was plenty of other top NBA talent for which that was also true, with Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade at the top of the list, but there’s nobody truly like LeBron.
As the NBA Draft is one of my favorite sports events, I spend a lot of time reading about it and following players’ workouts and the like. I also watch a great deal of college basketball. By no means does that qualify me to do a mock draft, but that doesn’t stop me from projecting the first round every year, for the primary reason that I enjoy doing it. It’s sort of a mix of what I think will happen with what I think should happen.
My track record isn’t horrible. For example, last year, I nailed eight of the first 12 picks, before proceeding to hit just one of the remaining 18. As such, I should probably just stop with the lottery, but what fun is that?
Note – before you take my picks to Vegas, I don’t feel particularly confident with this mock. And I’m not about to foresee Draft Day trades or anything.
Regardless, after the jump, let’s get our draft on.
As recently alluded to here, The NBA Draft is one of my favorite events of the year for a variety of reasons, most notably that I’m fascinated by the thought process that goes into shaping teams for the future. And despite all the snap judgments made right after it happens, it’s impossible to know without a few years of perspective who truly wins and loses a draft.
But just as a team can set themselves up for success down the road, a simple mistake can come back to haunt a team years down the road.
Now the Cavaliers could very well re-sign LeBron James, and the Knicks could lure him to New York, as Stephen A. Smith feels they might. Those are probably his two most likely destinations for 2010-11. But if either or both misses out, they’ll probably have to look at early parts of this decade and understand that one crucial mistake each cost them big-time.
So today is the first day in at least a decade that ESPN Zone in Times Square is shuttered, in addition to five others. I’m not particularly going to miss it – I don’t eat hamburgers, particularly 12 dollar ones – though it will be strange to pass through Times Square and not see it. I’m sure it’ll just be replaced by some other enormous theme restaurant or something.
I had a few experiences at these tourist traps, notably being harassed during a 2002 Duke-Maryland game in Washington, DC. But I do have one favorite moment when I think of ESPN Zone, which I’ve alluded to briefly, and it shows just how different things are a decade later.
As someone who’s been following every move LeBron James has made since before he had a high school diploma, I’ve eagerly anticipated for years the most spectacular free agency in the history of sports. I thought it’d be a basketball Christmas in July.
But then his season ended, I was bombarded by news about it, and I was surprised to find myself nonplused by the whole thing – despite the fact that my beloved Knicks are one of the main contenders for his services.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but this isn’t it.
Note: This is courtesy of SportsAngle executive editor Frank Pepe, also of Trumbull Island. I could not have said this better myself.
After turning in the worst playoff performance of his career, LeBron James might only have one more game of basketball left this season. Problem is, the most talented and accomplished young player on the planet famously has aspirations beyond athletics.
A celebrity and an outsized personality, the small forward has traditionally been selfish and petulant after his Cleveland teams’ eliminations, a fate he’s met with since first reaching the playoffs in 2006. Of course, until Tuesday, he’s been mostly excellent in these losses. So what happened early this week? Was he injured, defended well, or was he simply thinking about his dinner reservations?