LeBron James says he’s playing the best basketball of his life. All it took was a trip to the past to realize it.
By Dave Zarum
There the King stands on the right wing, clad in crimson and navy and waiting for a teammate to pass him the ball. With the shot clock at nine, LeBron James catches the ball and surveys his options.
To his right, a teammate occupies the corner, far out of range. No good. At the top of the arc are two more teammates, open, sure, but both unproven and, worse, unreliable.
With no other options, everybody in the building knows what’s coming next. The defence reacts accordingly, collapsing toward the lane just as James begins thundering to the basket. He slices through all four defenders who meet him along the way like he’s basketball’s answer to Inigo Montoya, and, in one graceful move, places the ball into the hands of a cutting big man, who finishes with a layup.
If a play had been called, James, it seemed, had scratched it.
That was eight years ago in Game 1 of the 2007 Finals between James’s Cleveland Cavaliers and the San Antonio Spurs.
LeBron’s first trip to the Finals came in just his fourth season, and he made it while carrying a supporting cast that left a lot to be desired: Rounding out the Cavs’ starting five that game were Sasha Pavlovic, Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes and Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
“In 2007, it came down to who [James] was surrounded by. There were issues with some of those guys,” says Dru Joyce II, who coached James from the age of 10 until his senior year of high school at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s in Akron, OH. “Some of them didn’t want to play defence.
Throughout that 2007 playoff run, James had put the team on his back—not that he had much of a choice. “LeBron is single most competitive guy I’ve ever known.” He felt like ‘Hey, this is what I’ve got to do,’” says Joyce. “‘If I’m going to have to get it done by myself, then that’s what I’ll try.’”
A few possessions later, James again receives the ball on the wing. His teammates clear out, and the best player in the game goes one-on-five. This time he’s blocked at the rim. Though he’ll keep trying, the Spurs’ mob defense will do its job against him the rest of the night. James will finish with just 14 points—still the most of any Cleveland starter.
The Cavs were ultimately swept by the Spurs, and it took James six years and a move to Florida to get his revenge.
With James now back in Cleveland—a storybook twist if there ever was one—it’s only natural to reflect on the last time he took his hometown team to the Finals and look for echoes today. And as he’s once again carrying a team whose sum is greater than its parts, this is the closest James has come to revisiting that ‘07 version of himself.
Here he is, hours from his fifth finals in as many years, preparing to play crunch-time minutes alongside the likes of J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, Timofey Mozgov, Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova.
That those five players—who, Smith aside, had a combined total of nine playoff wins under their belt heading into this season—could be important pieces of a championship team would have been flat-out unbelievable six months ago.
Of course, there’s no way LeBron could have seen the 2015 playoffs playing out this way, either. In signing with the Cavs last summer, he was, on paper, leaving one Big Three to form another, joining Kyrie Irving and—after the trade that sent Andrew Wiggins to Minnesota—Kevin Love.
But the shoulder injury that took Love out of the playoffs in the first round, and the nagging knee problems that have reduced Irving to a glorified X-factor changed all of that.
It’s placed James, who spent the last five years sharing the bulk of his minutes with at least one fellow all-star, in familiar shoes: left to weigh the need for him to take over games alongside his attempts to squeeze the most out of a limited-though-complementary supporting cast. Fortunately, that balancing act is one he’s been preparing for from his earliest days in the sport.
“There’s no doubt that the impact from 11 years old to high school had a big influence on the person he is and how he plays the game,” says Joyce, who still coaches at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s and runs James’s sponsored AAU club in the summers. “We really stressed talking about the team. Don’t worry about who gets the credit. Understand that if no one cares who gets the credit it’s amazing what you can accomplish. That’s something that LeBron bought into as a little kid, and still buys into today.”
For proof, look no further than James’s post-game press conferences throughout the playoffs, where he’s made a point of sharing the spotlight with his teammates. Joyce says they’ve reminded him of the way James used to include his high-school teammates in interviews.
“If someone had a great game he’d make a point to pull that guy in and make sure [the media] talked to him, too,” Joyce says. “Of course, the next day the paper would still say, ‘LeBron James leads St.Vincent-St.Mary’s to another victory.’”
Like that high school team (which won a national title), LeBron’s current teammates are stepping up. Thompson has emerged as a true force on the glass, Cleveland’s version of Dennis Rodman; Dellavedova and Shumpert are taking advantage of their open looks and playing disruptive defence; and Smith has truly shone in his role as the ultimate gunner, also benefiting from James’s magnetism on the floor.
Time and again—and unlike in ’07— that group has helped lift James and propel the Cavs through crucial stretches. There was Thompson’s 17 reboounds in game six against the Chicago Bulls, which was overshadowed only by Dellavedova’s game-high 19 points. Or Smith’s 28 points on 8-12 shooting from beyond the arc in game one against the Atlanta Hawks.
Through it all, James remains the sun by which his teammates revolve around. Perhaps no single performance can capture the totality of James’s impact on a game more than game three of the conference finals when the Hawks put up their best fight of the series. James recorded a historic triple double: 37 points, 18 rebounds, 13 assists, the only player to ever reach those numbers in the post-season. In doing so he also became the only player ever—playoffs or otherwise—to attempt 37 field goals while still managing those 13 assists.
While James revels in his alpha status, those around him are capitalizing on their opportunities by understanding—and embracing—their roles. Which, for many, isn’t as easy as it sounds. James played alongside 27 different teammates before he reached his first Finals. “LeBron casts a huge shadow, and it’ll overshadow players, coaches, front office—that’s just how it is,” explains Joyce. “Players have to be willing to change how they play and see the benefit of it as they go through it. The ones who can’t are the ones who ultimately end up leaving.”
Of course, playing alongside the best player in the world, at the peak of his powers and on the biggest stage in the sport, isn’t exactly a hard sell. And their embrace of that reality is something that separates this group from the 2007 Cavs (well that, and talent).
As LeBron said himself earlier this week, this is the likely best he’s ever been. Part of that is due to the obvious improvements to his game and body he’s made over time, his skills advancing as fast as his hairline recedes. But it’s also because of the situation he’s finds himself in heading into the Finals. Like 2007, he has to be all-encompassing. He has to be the one to put his teammates in a position to succeed.
But, unlike 2007, now he has the benefit of experience.
“He understands now that you can’t [do it alone],” says Joyce. “The game is too big. Nobody’s done it by themselves—Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, they all had supportive teammates who understood and played their roles, and you’ve got to have that. If you didn’t, it wouldn’t be basketball.”
Recent NBA history features just two other examples of players who’ve brought a team to the Finals virtually singlehandedly: Allen Iverson in 2001 and James in 2007. Both were swiftly beaten once they got there.
This time will be different.
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