When we were young and even when we were growing up, we all wanted to be like someone…

In August 1991, Gatorade launched a commercial for Michael Jordan that caused quite a stir and will not fade from our memories, even as it gradually fades…

“be like mike»!

So dare I, the ungodly, today–and I ask this to be recorded in the record–to pervert that motto and preach it to His Majesty of Akron, Ohio.

Be like LeBron!

I know, of course, that with what I’m writing here and with what I said this morning on Sportish’s ad hoc show alongside like-minded Spyros Kavalierato, I’m going to freak out and eat more bullying, but oh my God!

We too have our weaknesses and our old lovers, eh?

LeBronism and sandpaper

That I belong to the LeBronism movement is certainly known to everyone other than the readers of Sportish and I consider myself lucky to have met him in person and we exchanged a few words twice, once in July 2009 and in June 2016, so let’s do it further …

So I wrote in the foreword that we all wanted and want to look like someone and since obviously not everyone can be like LeBron James, the case reminds me of a bachelor’s remark to a client from an old joke…

“Ma’am, we’re out of toilet paper, but we do have very good sandpaper»!

But I’ve chatted enough and get on the grill, because the two historical moments have not only perpetrators but also victims who have secured a priori a place in eternity…

Sadly, in the case of Mark Eaton, this is literally true, as the jazz center that attempted to intercept Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s Sky Hook on April 9, 1984 died in a car accident while on a bike ride on May 28, 2021!

Picture card on envelope

The good giant of Utah didn’t stop the course of history, and even if Jabbar didn’t make that inverse, he’d pull the next one and certainly surpass Wilt Chamberlain, after all (he’d have) five years of career ahead of him.. .

The same goes for Kenrich Williams, who was fortunate and blessed of God to follow in LeBron’s footsteps in this fade out shot of the so-called “King” ditching the quotes from his nickname and becoming the King!

With both the forgiven Eaton and Williams, luck was very generous on these occasions: both have not only become part of the decor and not only entered the posters of the respective phases, but now see their master’s court card on the cover of Basketball History.

The new but old record

Jabbar died last night so that his worthy descendant could live and receive the priceless inheritance that he had accumulated over a year and a half…

Americans always ideologically and culturally separate regular season records from playoffs, but LeBron had scaled Everest by the criterion…the sum of points (combined points) from last year!

Now, after yesterday’s historic game, the Lakers forward has a total of 46,021 points in 1,675 games (38,390 in 1,490 regular season and 7,631 in 266 playoffs) and… still counting!

The countdown continues, that’s for sure…

For its part, the veteran center compares 44,419 points in 1,797 games (38,387 in 1,560 of the regular season and 5,762 in 237 of the playoffs).

THE GOAT AND SIZE

The title GOAT is a very relative concept, as is the meaning of the title…

Regardless of whether LeBron will be recognized as such at the end of his career or whether he will stand behind Jordan, his greatness is unquestionable.

I won’t go into this case any further because it has already been sufficiently analyzed and on top of that the guy is still fighting and showing his talents and the size of his game continuously and continuously.

On September 28, 2020, the eve of the start of the final (Lakers heat in the Orlando bubble), I wrote a text about LeBron here as a newcomer to Sportish at the time and after two and a half years I don’t move a rupee!

Two weeks later, LeBron was crowned champion for the fourth time in his career and also won his fourth Finals MVP award.

He’s been on a diet ever since, aside from not even blowing his nose in the playoffs last year, which may not be out of the question for him again this year, but that may be fine print given the size and legacy he’s becoming left to the next generations anyway as part of global sports ownership.

Of all that I have written in this text today, I succumb to the temptation to republish a passage that was already the epilogue…

The paper testified to everything

In June 2016, following the Cavaliers’ unprecedented, unique, and epic 1-3 to 4-3 Finals comeback against the Warriors, I had…reached from the floor beneath his locker room locker (and kept prominently in my file) a laminated sheet Paper with some wise words written on it…

A quote by American poet Camille Dungy is printed on one side…

“The dreams that God puts in your heart never change. Your integrity requires you to take steps forward, follow those dreams, get to a better place, get back up and push yourself.».

On the other side is a saying of the prophet Jeremiah from the book of the same name in the Old Testament and consists of two rhetorical questions…

“When people fall, don’t they get up again?”

“When a man goes away, doesn’t he come back?”

There is no doubt that LeBron fully supports the poet’s reasoning and answers the Prophet’s questions in the affirmative and emphatically…

“I shouldn’t even be here”

Three years earlier, on June 20, 2013, as he took the podium to accept the Finals MVP award (with the heat repeating), he poked fun at himself by saying…

“I’m LeBron James from downtown Akron, Ohio. I shouldn’t even be here. That’s enough»…

Well, in his opinion, it wasn’t foreseen, it wasn’t expected, maybe it wasn’t even supposed to be here and that’s enough …

With that statement (which Giannis Antetokounmpo later repeated, by the way), the guy from central Akron admitted that he had pierced his ceiling.

OK, I pass.

Last night he picked up his drill again and completely tore down the ceiling that Jabbar had built and bequeathed since June 13, 1989 in the fourth and final final of the season between the Lakers and the Champion Pistons.

mother’s pregnancy and “The Chosen One”

When Jabbar passed Chamberlain on April 9, 1984 to become the top scorer, his future mother, Gloria James, didn’t even know she was pregnant!

LeBron was born eight and a half months later (December 30, 1984), he’s 39 years old, he’s already been in the league for twenty years, he’s broken a lot of records, he’s undeterred and he’s proving Sports Illustrated wasn’t incorrect…

Launching in February 2002, the magazine featured then-high schooler LeBron and a headline full of intrigue, maybe exaggeration…

The chosen one!

The chosen one, you know…

The wealthy!

A shocking scene described by Nikos Kazantzakis in his book Reference to Greco fits LeBron perfectly…

It is the one in which the child asks the grandfather for a Cretan order and the old man tells him: “get where you can».

Then the child asks for a more difficult, more Cretan command, and then (as Kazantzakis writes) “and suddenly, as I spoke, a flame rent the air, the indomitable ancestor with the tangled thyme in his hair disappeared from my sight, and on the top of Sinai a voice stopped, full of command, and the air trembled: Come, where can not»!

At the end of the day (yesterday), LeBron gave meaning to the old man’s order…

He reached where he couldn’t!

Vassilis Skoundis and Spyros Cavalieratos commented on LeBron James’ legendary record: