If there’s one thing LeBron James is well aware of, it is the heavy weight of coming in as a celebrated young hooper. Dubbed the ‘Chosen One’, James was an 18-year-old straight out of high school with an impressive frame and an even better record. Widely hailed as the next Michael Jordan, the King opens up about the struggles he had to face.
James believes no one should go under the kind of stress he did when 18. He emphasized that when he said, “I didn’t look at myself as the face of anything. I didn’t look at myself as the successor of Michael or the next Michael.” And this kind of pressure is exactly what the NBA world has to stop giving to the young basketball players of today.
James is the best suited to talk about this, no doubt. He was first, a scrawny kid from the neighborhoods of Akron, looking to make it big. And then he was a 14-year-old freshman, weighing 180 pounds at 6’2, wreaking havoc on-court with his otherworldly talent. By the time LeBron was in his senior year, he had built a reputation for himself as the No. 1 player in the country.
Yet, the ‘Akron Hammer’ didn’t let it get to his head. When he got drafted, he went back to his roots. He walked into the NBA court with the mindset “that ‘I gotta start over and I’m just one of the 450 guys’.” Although the league brought him in and put it out there that he was going to be the face of the NBA, that wasn’t his focus area. At the center of every decision he made was his family. LeBron James was a family man – from the very beginning.
Even though Bron might not consider himself to be the next MJ, it is something that will stick with him throughout his life. And this is exactly the kind of behavior he warns against. “I don’t think you just say, OK, well, this guy’s the next person to be the face of anything. You just have to let it happen organically.”
USA Today via Reuters
For the league, James was like a rare natural phenomenon – a blue moon, if you will. But for him, it was like being thrown into the deep end with nothing more than his wits to survive. “Being the face of the NBA franchise at 18 years old was very stressful,” he admits. “I knew that the odds were stacked against me. A lot of people wanted to see me fail, and I just used that as a motivation.”
Well, it was great that the 4x champion could rise above all the noise and naysayers. Hopefully, the NBA can heed James’ words. After all, he is speaking from experience.
