Check out that birth date. LeBron has embedded himself into our consciousness so deeply that we feel as if we've known him for at least a decade. But LeBron James is only 23, and if you'd like to put his accomplishments in perspective, consider that Larry Bird turned 23 a little under two months into his rookie year. And at the end of that season, as great as he was, we knew he had a lot to learn.
LeBron is a different kind of 23, and never mind the face that could pass for 33. At 23, LeBron is a four-time All-Star. He is the leading scorer in the history of the Cleveland Cavaliers, doing in 380 games what it took Brad Daugherty to do in 514. He is a member of the Olympic team. He has been to the Finals. If there's an accomplishment with the word "youngest" attached to it, LeBron has done it.
Was it supposed to be this way? Why, yes, it was. LeBron is simply living up to everything that was predicted for him when he was, oh, 14.
He had to have been the toast of Akron youth basketball society at 8, 9, 10, and 11, but let's pick him up at 14, when he became a starter for St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. He averaged 20 points and 6 rebounds a game, and the team won the Division 3 state title.
That was the first of three state crowns, the only disappointment coming in his junior year, when the team moved up in class and was defeated in the tournament by Cincinnati's Roger Bacon. By that time, LeBron was so far out of his class individually that he very much wanted to forgo his senior year in order to enter the NBA, right then and there.
You needn't ask how David Stern felt about that. Put it down as a "No."
By this time, the 6-foot-7-inch swingkid had already appeared on the covers of Slam, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN The Magazine, and you'd really have to be living in a deep, dark, cable-less cave to be an American sports fan and be unaware of LeBron James.
