Magic Johnson would have no problem having Michael Jordan's No. 23 retired across the NBA. In fact, he says if the league approves the initiative, he and Larry Bird would be the first in line to support it.
Four SI.com writers analyze the latest news and address hot topics from around the NBA each week. (All stats and records are through Nov. 16.)
A lot of mail came in following my prediction that LeBron James will ultimately re-sign with Cleveland in 2010. Like LeBron, I believe in giving the people what they want ... so here we go again ...
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio (AP) -- LeBron James wants to be clear: Championships are more important than cash.
NEW YORK -- Like a home seller trying desperately to peddle a fixer-upper, the Knicks emptied all the paint cans and window cleaner they could find on the property that is New York Friday night to sell the idea of playing in Gotham to the most wanted homebuyer in the NBA, LeBron James.
• Their friendship declined on the court. In his upcoming book, When The Game Was Ours, co-written with Larry Bird and author Jackie MacMullan, Magic Johnson admits that his close friendship with Isiah Thomas began to suffer when the two met in the 1988 NBA Finals.
LeBron James is going to the Knicks. He's staying in Cleveland. He's going to the Nets, to play for that Russian billionaire, or maybe he'll find a way to play with his buddy Dwyane Wade somewhere, or he'll go to Europe or China and make $9 million per game for some team named after a cell-phone manufacturer. Then he'll buy the cell-phone manufacturer.
On a recent morning high above the Manhattan skyline, TNT's Charles Barkley was opining about one of his favorite subjects:
SI.com's Ian Thomsen, Chris Ballard, Chris Mannix, Jack McCallum and Arash Markazi forecast the 2009-10 season.
The NBA's 64th season tips off Tuesday night. Who are the players and what are the stories that will shape the next eight months? SI.com's Ian Thomsen offers a sneak peek ...
Magic Johnson would have no problem having Michael Jordan's No. 23 retired across the NBA. In fact, he says if the league approves the initiative, he and Larry Bird would be the first in line to support it.
Four SI.com writers analyze the latest news and address hot topics from around the NBA each week. (All stats and records are through Nov. 16.)
A lot of mail came in following my prediction that LeBron James will ultimately re-sign with Cleveland in 2010. Like LeBron, I believe in giving the people what they want ... so here we go again ...
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio (AP) -- LeBron James wants to be clear: Championships are more important than cash.
NEW YORK -- Like a home seller trying desperately to peddle a fixer-upper, the Knicks emptied all the paint cans and window cleaner they could find on the property that is New York Friday night to sell the idea of playing in Gotham to the most wanted homebuyer in the NBA, LeBron James.
• Their friendship declined on the court. In his upcoming book, When The Game Was Ours, co-written with Larry Bird and author Jackie MacMullan, Magic Johnson admits that his close friendship with Isiah Thomas began to suffer when the two met in the 1988 NBA Finals.
LeBron James is going to the Knicks. He's staying in Cleveland. He's going to the Nets, to play for that Russian billionaire, or maybe he'll find a way to play with his buddy Dwyane Wade somewhere, or he'll go to Europe or China and make $9 million per game for some team named after a cell-phone manufacturer. Then he'll buy the cell-phone manufacturer.
On a recent morning high above the Manhattan skyline, TNT's Charles Barkley was opining about one of his favorite subjects:
SI.com's Ian Thomsen, Chris Ballard, Chris Mannix, Jack McCallum and Arash Markazi forecast the 2009-10 season.
The NBA's 64th season tips off Tuesday night. Who are the players and what are the stories that will shape the next eight months? SI.com's Ian Thomsen offers a sneak peek ...
This article appears in the October 26, 2009, issue of Sports Illustrated
This article appears in the October 26, 2009, issue of Sports Illustrated
Now that Shaquille O'Neal, LeBron James and the rest of the Cavaliers have officially begun preparing for the season, the question must be asked: By what logic do we expect the Big Diesel to provide a 2009-10 performance that is healthy and productive enough to take Cleveland to the next level in its quest for an NBA championship?
The most ominous glimpse of what is to come this season took place in a blink -- a pass to LeBron James that he instantly volleyballed to the far side of the basket while Shaquille O'Neal spun out of the post and behind his defender to bank in the alley-oop layup. "That was just two basketball players making a read,'' said James after he made his debut with his large and elder sidekick. "For the first game I thought we played pretty well as a team, and me and Shaq definitely played pretty well together. It shouldn't be hard for the both of us -- we both know how to play and we both know how to win.''
Now that we've seen the tape of LeBron James getting "posterized," or at least dunked on by Xavier's Jordan Crawford at his summer camp, we have the context to gauge James' and others' reaction.
In the annals of abject disgrace, apparently LeBron James now stands atop this dubious mountain. TMZ, which seems to have its fingers in every titillating, salacious and controversial pie these days, has posted a video that Nike attempted to squelch. In it, the King is -- gasp! -- dunked on by Xavier sophomore Jordan Crawford in a pickup game at the LeBron James Skills Academy in Akron.
As free agency slows down and the summer league wraps up, we look forward to 2009-2010.
LOS ANGELES -- As the Lakers and Magic prepped for Game 1 of the NBA Finals, LeBron James was undergoing five hours of dental surgery to remove a benign growth from his right jaw. Which was less painful than the metaphorical dental surgery he had to endure later.
LeBron James should have shaken hands and congratulated the Orlando Magic the other night. We're all in agreement on that, are we not? He didn't have to be particularly warm, he didn't even have to be sincere. He just needed to bump a couple of fists, or maybe give out a quick man hug or two, before he headed off to the locker room after the Magic eliminated his Cavs from the playoffs on Saturday. Not only would it have saved him the smattering of grief he's been getting from the media and fans the last few days, it just would have also been the right thing to do.
On the night of his league's draft lottery, NBA commissioner David Stern engaged in a little ping-pong of his own with reporters. During a lively Q&A session with the press, Stern was asked about the importance of LeBron James making the NBA Finals. "You mean as opposed to Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony or Kobe Bryant?" Stern said. "None. We have nothing but stars. We should be called NBS instead of NBA."
In the wake of Cleveland's loss in the Eastern Conference finals, SI.com's NBA experts assess LeBron James' future with the team -- or elsewhere.
ORLANDO -- Up 3-2 in the Eastern finals, are these Orlando Magic on the verge of becoming the 2006 Dallas Mavericks? That is LeBron James's hope.
Well, I never saw anything like that before.
LeBron James leads the Cavaliers to a win in front of a star-studded crowd
CLEVELAND -- If you want something done ... what you do is either score or assist in 32 consecutive points in a virtuoso performance.
CLEVELAND -- He is averaging an outrageous 42.3 points in the Eastern Conference finals while shooting 50.9 percent with 7.3 assists -- numbers that exceed his MVP season. So what more is LeBron James supposed to do?
CLEVELAND -- He sprinted away from the basket out past the three-point line to catch the inbounds pass at the height of his leap. LeBron James landed with the ball as if upon a diving board that shot him back up high. He was looking at the basket with his chin near his right shoulder and the goal like a needle's orange eye slim and small and 25 feet away.
ATLANTA -- It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that tough either. When the final buzzer sounded in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinal, though, it was the Cavs again raising their arms in victory for the eight straight game, thanks to a stingy defense that held Atlanta to 31.5 percent shooting (15.4 percent from three-point range) and some clutch shooting by Mo Williams and Delonte West down the stretch.
ATLANTA -- The Cavaliers advanced to the Eastern Conference finals by pulling out another gutty road win and extending their playoff win streak to eight games. Right?
ATLANTA -- Wrapped in towels from head to toe, LeBron James looked more mummy than king. He sat in the corner of the visitor's locker room at Philips Arena, put his head back against the wall and shut his eyes.
Let me see if I can make this clear without getting myself in trouble:
Decisions, decisions. Can't live with 'em, can't thrive without 'em.
OVERVIEW: We've seen this show before, haven't we? About 20 years ago, another rising superstar vanquished a fading Pistons empire en route to dominating the league for the next decade. LeBron James, of course, has six titles to win -- and free agency to navigate -- before he can match the man whose number he adopted. But he can emulate Michael Jordan in the immediate future by swinging the last wrecking ball at a Pistons team president Joe Dumars already started dismantling in November, when he sent point guard and team leader Chauncey Billups to Denver for Allen Iverson and his expiring contract. Given the passing fortunes of both teams, and the warm division rivalry they already share, this could be a testy series.
The talk around the office water cooler has been especially grim lately as the realization hits home that, beyond just money, what so many of us are losing in this economic strife is time. Time, as in seeing your 401(k) dialed back to 1997 levels. Time, as in losing a decade's worth of presumed equity in your home. Time, as in the 40 hours each week that soon might be freed up by your downsizing employer (no more water cooler then, either).
In basketball, the intrigue with the physical has always been devoted to the extremes of height -- the very tall and the very short: say, Yao Ming at 7-foot-6 or Nate Robinson at 5-9. That makes the fascination with LeBron James' body all the more unusual.
The uniforms said New York Knicks, but LeBron James' real opponent Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden was playing almost 350 miles away in Toronto.
There was a moment during last Friday's Cavaliers-Warriors game when it looked as if Golden State center Andris Biedrins, who is no small man at 6' 11" and 245 pounds, had been sucked out of an airplane hold, so forcefully was he sent flying backward. Biedrins was attempting to protect the rim when Cleveland forward LeBron James came charging down the lane in that straight-line, parting-the-waters manner of his. Gamely, Biedrins took to the air to try to block the shot, and then -- whoomp! -- next thing you knew he was hurtling onto his backside.
The NBA's latest version of a long-running presidential election involves LeBron James and more than a dozen other high-profile candidates. The issue: Where will they land when they become free agents in 2010?
A new website lets you invest real money in virtual shares of real sports superstars. Is this new game worth your time, and money?
The Cavaliers' megastar, fresh off helping the U.S. basketball team win gold at the Beijing Olympics, will be at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend for the debut of "More Than A Game,"
He predicted the U.S. would win basketball gold in Beijing. Spain came close to spoiling it all, but James came through
U.S. basketball star LeBron James has suffered a pre-Olympic injury scare at the team's training camp in Las Vegas and will miss Friday's warmup game against Canada.
The Cleveland Cavalier and global icon who led the NBA in scoring this season, talks about his confidence in bringing the title back home
Kobe Bryant and LeBron James head up a star-studded United States squad for the Olympic basketball tournament in Beijing later this summer.
CLEVELAND -- Is LeBron James underrated?
BOSTON -- At 23, LeBron James has already played in an NBA Finals and won five playoff series, which in each case is more than veteran rivals Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce or Ray Allen can say. So has James quickly learned to relax in the postseason, even after shooting 2-for-18 from the field with 10 turnovers in the Cavaliers' 76-72 loss here Tuesday in Game 1.
It's often the little things that feed legends, and the legend of LeBron James continues to grow.
LeBron James, holding a pair of prop glasses in one hand and a stack of papers in the other, stands in the center of a makeshift courtroom set up in the bowels of the Cleveland Convention Center preparing for a commercial that by his own admission he hasn't rehearsed for.
The search is on to find one for the thumb, even if that thumb eventually will be jerked not so subtly to the side, indicating that our chosen player here must go to the end of a line already four-men deep.
MVP LeBron James and Ray Allen led a fourth-quarter scoring surge as the Eastern Conference beat the Western Conference 134-128 in Sunday's All-Star game in New Orleans.
It was 90 minutes before tip-off last Thursday at Key Arena in Seattle, and LeBron James was shooting what could only loosely be called jump shots, his toes barely leaving the hardwood before each release. James, the NBA's leading scorer, had lost his celebrated ability to elevate the night before in Portland, when he sprained his right ankle late in the first half. Yet the Cleveland Cavaliers' wondrous small forward not only played through the discomfort against the Trail Blazers, but he also produced another of his heroic fourth quarters, knifing through the lane for a game-winning layup with 0.3 of a second left.
LeBron James is playing like an MVP this season while keeping the Cavs afloat. But will this latest chapter in the Anderson Varejao saga -- the unsigned free agent forward now says he no longer wants to play in Cleveland -- affect James' view of the direction of the franchise?
LeBron James put on another shooting clinic in a 118-81 rout of Argentina as the United States locked up a tournament gold medal to go with an Olympic berth at the FIBA Americas Championship on Sunday.
Basketball star LeBron James and his girlfriend Savannah Brinson welcomed their second son, Bryce Maximus James, on Thursday, their rep tells PEOPLE.
CLEVELAND -- Credit Mike Brown for trying.
CLEVELAND -- For LeBron James, the goal is simple heading into Game 4 of the NBA Finals: Make the Spurs put away their LeBrooms. And find a way to get Cleveland back in the series.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Substance over style. That's the San Antonio way.
The 2007 NBA Finals has a family feel. First, there's the kinship between the two staffs -- Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown worked for, and general manager Danny Ferry played for, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who learned many of his X's and O's at the elbow of Cavs assistant Hank Egan, his mentor at the Air Force Academy.
SAN ANTONIO -- After a day of being grilled about his dismal NBA Finals debut, LeBron James was more than ready for a new topic. The Cavs star got his wish Saturday when he was asked about going up Sunday night against the much-hyped finale of the HBO series, The Sopranos.
SAN ANTONIO -- Being LeBron James isn't as easy as the Pistons made it look.
Also in this column: • On the Sonics' future • Donovan makes right decision • Kobe puts his foot down
If there's one certainty about this Finals, it's that San Antonio, which even the �berconfident LeBron James calls "the premier team in our league" and "the big bad wolf of the West," will not self-destruct like Detroit did. Furthermore, the Spurs have had more than enough time to devise a plan to curtail James. The Cavaliers must now find a way to get past a highly evolved group of veterans with a more sophisticated offense than the Pistons' -- not to mention a more positive team chemistry.
Whatever unfolds over the next two weeks in the NBA's championship series, which was scheduled to begin on Thursday at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, we are -- make no mistake -- beholding the LeBron Finals. Not since 1998, when Michael Jordan cleverly nudged aside Utah Jazz forward Bryon Russell to hit the jump shot that gave his Chicago Bulls their sixth and last title, has the NBA had such a singular, celestial focus for its climactic event.
CLEVELAND -- A poster of LeBron James dunking over Spurs forward Tim Duncan was displayed in the locker stall of the Cavs superstar before Saturday night's Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals.
One man understands as well as anyone how difficult it is for LeBron James to solve the athletic riddle that is the Detroit Pistons' defense. He was the one, after all, who put together the Pistons' plan that stopped (well, limited anyway) Michael Jordan two decades ago.
With approximately $150 million in endorsements and a seemingly limitless future on the basketball court, the world is at LeBron James's fingertips. Alas, so are the Pistons -- at his fingertips, in his face, nipping at his heels and sometimes, such as at the end of Game 2 in the Eastern Conference finals, raking his arm. For the 22-year-old Cavaliers superstar, the first two games of this series had been the hoops equivalent of No Exit, Sartre's existentialist play in which the main characters try to escape from their own personal hell.
The names have changed, but the dynamic of the Eastern Conference finals is every bit as intriguing as it was nearly two decades ago when another prodigious number 23 was trying to take down the Detroit Pistons, then in the midst of a run that included three straight trips to the Finals and back-to-back championships. It took Michael Jordan four straight postseason meetings before he learned how to beat Detroit; the question today is whether LeBron James can acquire that knowledge in half the time.
The Detroit Pistons scraped a 79-76 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers in Auburn Hills on Monday to draw first blood in their Eastern Conference finals series.
In the NBA, abuse is the sincerest form of flattery. So it is with congratulations I hereby report that the Cleveland Cavaliers have become a team their rivals love to hate.
When LeBron James arrived in the National Basketball League in 2003, he was hailed as the next Michael Jordan - both on and off the court.
Q When the company I work for was acquired recently, my stock options were suddenly worth more than $1 million. Is it okay to say nothing about this to my siblings? My brothers have good jobs, but...
LeBron James became the youngest MVP in the history of the NBA's All-Star game as he led the East to a 122-120 comeback victory over the West in Houston on Sunday night.
Teenage sensation LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers was among five NBA stars added to the USA squad for the Athens Olympics.
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