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As we have a good time the twentieth anniversary of the 2003 NBA Draft, aka the yr LeBron James went professional, a former SLAM Ed. appears again at what it was prefer to cowl a 16-year-old with a future even his wildest goals couldn’t think about.
Within the days earlier than YouTube and any social media platform you’ve heard of, consciousness of the Subsequent Massive Factor typically got here in levels. The soon-to-be multi-platinum recording artist, the long run Corridor of Fame athlete and the arena-headlining comedic genius nearly by no means received well-known ; proximity, and connections, decided who knew about them when. Fame was a gradual factor, and only a few individuals ever had an opportunity to be within the choose group often known as “first.”
The place basketball is worried, this publication has typically been one of many exceptions. Strictly talking, SLAM has by no means found anybody, however we constructed our rep partly on introducing the sport’s brightest younger stars to our readers earlier than nearly anybody outdoors their hometowns—together with our nationwide media friends—had heard of them. We constructed connections throughout the grassroots scene, we paid consideration, and in {a magazine} created to have a good time at this time’s superstars, we at all times discovered house to inform you about tomorrow’s.
There’s a compelling case to be made for LeBron James because the final true celebrity to emerge from that principally analog period, a time when journal covers, SportsCenter highlights and not less than one semi-authorized biography (extra on that in a minute) did the work of constructing the legend. He was already one of many largest tales in sports activities when he stepped onto the NBA draft stage 20 years in the past this summer time. Plenty of that needed to do with the three SLAM options, two covers and a yr’s price of Basketball Diary entries he’d already been the topic of.
Shortly earlier than he made his NBA debut that fall, not one however two LeBron biographies hit bookstore cabinets. The primary of them, by about three weeks, was mine. King James: Imagine the Hype exists solely due to SLAM, particularly due to the entry that then 16-year-old LeBron and his tightly stored circle granted the magazine earlier than what appeared like your entire world descended on Akron to feed on, and into, the aforementioned hype. To the extent that the ebook holds up, it’s as a snapshot of two surreal years within the basketball lifetime of a man who was destined to finish up on the GOAT shortlist.
In fact, LeBron was neither the primary nor the final to hold the Subsequent Massive Factor weight in our pages. Based in 1994 with a distinctly NYC lean, it was solely becoming that the primary prep star we aligned with was Brooklyn’s personal Stephon Marbury, maybe the final actually iconic New York Metropolis-born-and-bred hoop star. The Coney Island level god was the primary individual to put in writing our Basketball Diary; 4 years later, when Ray Allen performed a highschool star primarily based closely on Starbury in Spike Lee’s He Bought Recreation, his character, Jesus Shuttlesworth, received his personal on-screen SLAM cowl (see pg. 60 for extra on that—Ed.).
The circulate of hype-generating, doubtlessly generational expertise has by no means stopped. On LeBron’s heels, and from Marbury’s personal neighborhood and bloodline, got here Sebastian Telfair, who memorably shared a canopy along with his buddy from Akron and adopted him as our Diary keeper. Then got here OJ Mayo, a varsity star as a West Virginia eighth grader and thus the obvious entry into the “who’s the subsequent LeBron?” sweepstakes that no one wanted. Perceive, Bassy and OJ had been unimaginable highschool gamers, and possibly below totally different circumstances would’ve had extra substantial NBA careers. As it’s, they helped affirm that LeBron—the dude who by some means not solely met however surpassed probably the most ridiculous profession expectations ever placed on a 16-year-old basketball participant—was the exception, not the rule.
Within the years since, in all probability solely Zion Williamson and the Ball brothers have come shut
to LeBron ranges of pre-NBA consideration with the excitement created by their hyper-viral highschool spotlight clips (with LaMelo and Lonzo getting an help from Pops, in fact). The most recent to contend for that ultrabright highlight is Victor Wembanyama, a real unicorn with worldwide attraction and a spotlight reel completely suited to TikTok and Insta edits. In case you’ve been paying consideration, you already know SLAM was up on these dudes early and sometimes as properly.
However as this journal approaches its thirtieth birthday (!!!) and the topic of this story wraps up Yr 20 within the League, there nonetheless hasn’t actually been a saga fairly like LeBron’s.
Someday in 2002, when the nationwide consideration and more and more prying protection of LeBron James turned actually disruptive, the administration at St. Vincent-St. Mary Excessive College positioned an indication in entrance of its entrance asserting that media was not allowed on campus. However a yr or so earlier, once we pulled as much as campus within the spring of 2001, we had been greeted with a unique signal: “WELCOME SLAM MAGAZINE.”
That first go to was an opportunity to satisfy the varsity’s AD and basketball coaches, LeBron’s teammates and the lanky 16-year-old himself. We hung within the lunchroom, watched a casual after-school apply run, then caught dinner with LeBron and his mother. The consequence was the primary feature-length LeBron James profile to look outdoors the 330 space code. On reflection, it appears loopy that we didn’t put him on the duvet, however belief that the mere considered placing a largely unknown highschool sophomore from Ohio’s fifth-largest metropolis on our entrance web page appeared, on the time, infinitely crazier. SLAM in 2001 was in the beginning a newsstand journal, and solely established stars moved newsstand models. (Truthfully, our largest remorse is perhaps that considered one of Atiba Jefferson’s iconic photographs from that story didn’t grace the duvet).
Nonetheless, we had been already treating him as one thing totally different. He wrote our Basketball Diary in ’01-02, changing into the primary non-senior to deal with the gig; a yr after that preliminary function, with a game-changing Sports activities Illustrated cowl and common SportsCenter highlights below his belt, LeBron (alongside Sebastian Telfair) landed on our cowl. A yr after that, along with his senior yr over and his unprecedented highschool profession behind him, he received his first solo cowl. Legendary hip-hop photographer Jonathan Mannion was behind the lens; LeBron wore a Mitchell & Ness Michael Jordan NBA All-Star jersey on his chest, an acknowledgement of the expectations he welcomed, and a customized SLAM headband on his brow. The latter was his concept, nothing we requested for or anticipated, a beneficiant nod to the publication that had sought him out and advised his story earlier than anybody else.
The ebook got here out a number of months later, and far of it expanded on reporting and interviews first printed within the journal. A part of that meant acknowledging the absurdity of dedicating a lot ink—a sentiment shared by the various publishers who turned down the ebook proposal, apparently—to an 18-year-old excessive schooler. My pitch—that this dude had the potential to be one of many best of all time—had much less to do with my very own scouting prowess (ha) and far more to do with the opinions of people that truly knew. That began along with his highschool coaches, notably Keith Dambrot, the once- and future-Division I school coach whose repute helped convey LeBron and a handful of his AAU teammates to St. V within the first place.
Dambrot had run offseason abilities periods on the native Jewish Group Middle attended by Bron and people teammates—aka the Fab 4, which expanded to a Fab 5 by the point their highschool run was over—so he knew he had a gifted class. It didn’t take Dambrot lengthy to comprehend that in LeBron, he had far more. Once we first spoke within the spring of ’01, Dambrot by no means hesitated in acknowledging the validity of comparisons to the likes of Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady. He wasn’t nervous about organising LeBron to fail towards unrealistic expectations, as a result of he noticed every single day how exhausting his finest participant labored, his off-the-charts basketball IQ and simply how gifted he was.
The remainder of the world received its probability to see him as his junior and senior seasons performed out. There was the legendary 2001 ABCD Camp displaying shortly after his first SLAM function—LeBron, a rising junior, outdueling top-ranked senior-to-be Lenny Cooke in a recreation that took on outsized significance within the trajectories of each gamers. Even then, LeBron was being touted (amongst individuals who didn’t learn this journal, anyway) as an “unknown” who was “found” on the camp. Hardly, however it was one other step within the creation of a legend.
Two extra steps got here in showcase video games towards nationwide prep energy Oak Hill Academy. The primary, performed in Trenton, NJ, in February 2002, marked the primary and solely highschool assembly between LeBron and Carmelo Anthony. Each gamers balled out, with Melo main his stacked Oak Hill squad to the win. A yr later in Cleveland, the rematch was televised by ESPN, with Invoice Walton and Dick Vitale on the decision. With Melo gone to Syracuse, Bron and the Irish rolled to a 20-point win.
Even the video games that weren’t on ESPN had been occasions: St. V performed a nationwide schedule throughout LeBron’s senior season, hooping in Philly, Los Angeles and a handful of spots in between. The staff’s residence video games, in the meantime, had been moved to the close by College of Akron to accommodate fan curiosity, and a neighborhood cable firm secured a deal to supply them on pay-per-view. The off-court “controversies” that got here with such consideration—investigations and a suspension for accepting a few throwback jerseys from a neighborhood retailer and getting an advance on a Hummer a number of months earlier than he was formally price 9 figures—had been ridiculous on the time and, notably within the NIL period, by some means look even dumber now.
After which his beginner days had been over, the $90 mil verify from Nike previous the primary of his many comma-heavy NBA contracts. My ebook got here out that fall, and one other…over two dozen SLAM covers have adopted within the 20 years since. We didn’t understand how all this is able to prove, in fact, however being first, we might solely stick round to see the way it ended. Twenty years later, we’re as amazed as anybody that his story isn’t over—that by some means, there may be nonetheless extra to put in writing.
Images by way of Getty Photographs.
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