from the Cleveland Plain Dealer
James a humdinger of hoops enigma
01/15/03
The team that drafts LeBron James gets a probable Top 10 NBA player and a possible Top 10 headache. Everyone connected with the Cavaliers would take that package in a nanosecond, though. You always take talent like this.
LeBron James is simply the best high school basketball player probably ever. (I say that having seen Moses Malone as a high school senior in Pittsburgh's Dapper Dan Roundball Classic 30 years ago. Then, as was the case throughout his long pro career, Moses' best move was a rebound of his own missed shot.)
LeBron James is a stunning synthesis of Michael Jordan's rim-bending explosiveness and Magic Johnson's flair for passing. The ability to pass is what the scouts love, because that's the easiest way to make one's teammates better. If the pingpong balls bounce right, and LeBron becomes a Cavalier, more than one Cav at a time might actually play well.
Ever since LeBron made the cover of Sports Illustrated last year, people have wondered if the "too much, too soon" syndrome might not bring him down, as it has claimed many others. It certainly fosters an attitude of entitlement in those around him. So far, the St. Vincent-St. Mary senior has done a good job of separating his game from the inherent selfishness in basketball. But life off the court is harder.
There is, for example, that $50,000 Hummer he drives, the one with the three TVs, a video game hook-up and hot tub. (OK. The hot tub is a joke, but the rest isn't.) It was LeBron's 18th birthday present. Most unemployed single mothers, such as Gloria James, would not receive a bank loan for such a car.
But, while there are NCAA rules against college players securing loans based on projections of their professional income, most high school rules are still stuck in the horse-and-buggy era. At the Ohio High School Athletic Association, they don't have any idea how to cope with these problems, because they never anticipated them. LeBron got too good, too fast for the defenses they had in place. The lawyers will have to thrash out the case of the long, hot Hummer, but I bet nothing is done to jeopardize the eligibility of the OHSAA's top tournament drawing card.
So, is this kid really, as S.I. proclaimed, "The Chosen One"? It doesn't help that basketball came so easily to him. Jordan, as every scrub everywhere knows, was cut in the 10th grade. Not that LeBron has had an easy life. His father figure, Eddie Jackson, is serving three years in jail for real-estate fraud. But, as is obvious from the "King James" legend on his sneakers, mouthpiece and T-shirts, he has not had a lot of adversity in basketball. Jordan had an unquenchable drive to succeed after being cut, and it was a late growth spurt that turned him into a premier college prospect. LeBron could dunk in the eighth grade.
Jordan also played three years for Dean Smith at North Carolina, where he was guarded by older, stronger players who were his own size. His fundamentals were impeccable as an NBA rookie. Johnson was an All-Star as a 20-year-old rookie, but he played two seasons for the respected Jud Heathcote at Michigan State. LeBron won't spend one minute in college.
"Put me down for 50," LeBron said after sizing up one hapless tournament opponent in warm-ups last year. That was the only year he has been there that SVSM did not win state. Uneasy, as the man wrote, lies the head that wears a crown.