BASKETBALL/ INTERVIEW WITH LEBRON JAMES: Duncan McRaetalks to the next great basketball superstar whose individual brilliance is as good off the court as it is on it
LEBRON JAMES walked alone down an echoing corridor in the basement of the United Center in Chicago late on a Saturday night last month. The sweat rolled from his face and his tattooed arms as, without any shoes, he ambled across a shiny floor in long black socks. The rest of his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, were already recovering behind a closed locker-room door after another win on the road in a draining series of back-to-back games. But, as if he could hardly bear to leave the scene of his latest triumph, King James had lingered on the court which Michael Jordan once dominated in Chicago.
James intentionally wears the same number for Cleveland, 23, that Jordan made his own for Chicago and it was hard to shake the comparison in a pulsating fourth quarter. With the score tied at 77-77, James buried yet another massive three-pointer from the edge of the court as he set about transforming a tight NBA game against a young Chicago team desperate to overturn their loss in Cleveland a few days earlier - when James scored 41 points. But the next great basketball superstar rolled over the home side in an astonishing display of individual brilliance. Another perfectly-executed three-pointer from deep within a crowded court finally broke the Bulls and the Cavaliers eased away to win 106-97. James, for the second time in three successive matches, had scored 41 points.
The 6ft 8in, 250lb giant was whooping with delight by the time he completed his shoeless shuffle to the locker room. Two ice-buckets were waiting for him in the far left-hand corner of a room steaming with basketball players in various states of undress. "I'm real happy," James said as he stripped off his sodden socks and dunked his feet in their wince-inducing deep freeze. "Once I get in the zone they can put as many men on me as they like and it just don't matter. They brought the double-team on me and I still got those three-pointers off. They brought the triple-team on me and you see the three-pointer I still sank? Damn near broke their hearts."
James ripped off his vest to use it as a mop to wipe his beaming face. "They played me just like every team in the NBA is gonna play me. They're gonna be on me so tight I have to shoot them down from the outside but, tonight, I accepted their challenge. I'm not going to go out there and do that every night. I'm not going to be perfect every fourth quarter but each time I'm gonna try my heart out to put my team in a position to win - and tonight I did that. I feel good, baby, real good."
THIS IS HOWit was always meant to end up for a young basketball player who has been called The Chosen One ever since he was a teenager in Akron, Ohio. James went straight from school to the NBA as the number one draft pick in 2003 - when he signed a $90 million (€64.5 million) shoe contract with Nike even before he had made his debut for Cleveland. He has driven the unfashionable Cavaliers to the last three play-offs - making their first appearance in the NBA final two years ago against San Antonio Spurs. And now this season, after picking up Olympic gold as part of the US team in Beijing, James has inspired Cleveland to the second-best record in the NBA - in a year which has seen him become only the third man, after Richard Gere and George Clooney, to make the cover of Vanity Fairin the magazine's 116-year history.
A month on from Chicago, in a hotel room in Denver just a few days before Christmas, with the Cavaliers only hours from improving their record to 22-4 after another 33 points from James, the big man spoke quietly but intently. "Since you saw me in Chicago I've been playing the same high level because the next step is to win the NBA championship. All the guys on the team understand that's my goal. That's why I feel great."
There are few more compelling sights in world sport than that of a young player living up to the enormous hype that preceded his emergence. And while the battle between his Cavaliers and the reigning champions, the Boston Celtics, will surely be one of the sporting stories of 2009, the business backdrop to the James saga is almost as riveting.
Three years ago, when he was still only 20, James shocked American sport by walking away from his agent and setting up his own company, LRMR, with three young friends from Ohio. This was not a "brand" which young black men, barely into their 20s, were meant to control and own. "The NBA were definitely nervous because they had never seen anything like this before," James admitted. "They were used to the traditional concept of a guy coming into the NBA with an agent who handles his day-to-day business while he just plays basketball. But I wanted to be different. I wanted to run my own thing and be totally hands-on.
"I CAN'T THINKof anyone else taking care of their own brand at such a young age in this way. I just had confidence in myself and the guys around me to be successful. We knew it was going to be a big challenge. We were going into new territory and we'd get a lot of heat from people determined to downplay us. They thought we were too young and inexperienced but that motivated us even more. We wanted to prove them wrong."
Few young sportsmen would be confident enough to discuss business strategies with a 78-year-old billionaire like Warren Buffett - but James is animated when explaining his unlikely friendship with the American investor rated as the world's richest man in the first half of 2008 by Forbesmagazine. Buffet has suggested that James is more "financially mature" now than he had been at 50.
"Warren is definitely a great guy. The best thing he taught me was to follow my gut. Whatever decision you make it's almost always best to go with your initial instinct because 99 per cent of the time that's the right choice."
James might be the market-leader in generating NBA advertising revenue - earning over $25 million (€17.9 million) a year in endorsements, $10 million (€7.1 million) more than Kobe Bryant, the next-highest earner in basketball - but he and his schoolboy friends have been even more commercially savvy. Rather than just accepting straight sponsorship deals from Coke, Microsoft and Nike, James has pursued contracts in which he receives an equity stake in companies who use his image to sell their products.
None of this would matter if James did not play outstanding basketball - and last month he became the youngest player to score 11,000 NBA points, being almost a year quicker than Bryant in reaching that milestone. After winning again two nights ago, in Oklahoma with James scoring 31 points, he returned home to Cleveland yesterday morning. The Cavaliers play Houston tonight before, on Christmas Day, facing the Washington Wizards.
"YOU NEVERget used to having a Christmas Day game," James sighed. "But I've had a few in my career and it's a special day, a day of giving. Hopefully I can put a lot of smiles on my kids' faces."
As James is closing in on his ambition of becoming a billionaire it can be assumed that his two sons, four-year-old LeBron Jr and 18-month-old Bryce, and his girlfriend and high school sweetheart, Savannah Brinson, will be thrilled with their bulging Christmas stockings.
The competitive zeal which makes James such a sporting force can be heard in his bone-dry cackle when he is reminded that, on Christmas night, he will face DeShawn Stevenson, the Washington Wizard who disrespected him in last year's play-offs. After Stevenson claimed that James was "overrated", the Cavalier responded coolly by saying that if he replied "it would be like Jay-Z saying something bad about Soulja Boy".
Jay-Z weighed in with a free-style rap in support of James and Stevenson retreated rapidly as the Cavaliers won an easy series-victory. "He's been real quiet this season," James said of Stevenson. "I've had no problems from any other players this year but Jay and myself are family. We stick up for each other."
James is unlikely to need much help from either Jay-Z or Warren Buffett as he chases a first NBA championship and his aim of becoming a global sporting phenomenon. "I'm getting close to both. You know one of my favourite lines in The Godfatheris to 'move while you have the muscle'. Right now I've got a lot of muscle and I'm moving real fast. I'm heading in the right direction on and off the court."
• Guardian Service
