Nobody does it better than King James, who led the Los Angeles Lakers to a record-tying 17th NBA championship while elevating his activism to new heights
Last month an old interview of LeBron James resurfaced that quickly went viral on NBA Twitter. The grainy footage was from a program called HBO’s On the Record with Bob Costas that was recorded shortly before James made the jump from St Vincent-St Mary High to the professional ranks. By then he was already a national sensation – Sports Illustrated had featured him on its cover more than a year earlier under the headline THE CHOSEN ONE – having spent his final season of high school basketball on a barnstorming tour that filled gyms and arenas around the country and sating the intense curiosity of a pre-YouTube world.
The clip is only 33 seconds in length, but it’s more than enough time to offer a sense of the extreme pressure this 18-year-old amateur faced on the doorstep of his destiny.
An 18-year-old LeBron James is asked how it feels to know he will be considered a failure if he doesn’t turn out to be one of the greatest basketball players ever. Six days after this interview aired, he was selected with the first overall pick of the 2003 NBA draft. pic.twitter.com/fGJsL18lri
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