MARCH 27, 2004 LEBRON JAMES
On May 22, 2003, the city of Cleveland, Ohio, had its wildest basketball dream come true. That was when the NBA announced the picking order for its upcoming draft. The Cleveland Cavaliers were first on the list, and that meant one thing: they would get to choose LeBron James.
Eighteen-year-old James was a high school basketball phenom, a true superstar who could dribble, shoot, pass, and lead his team to victory after victory. Sure, he was young, but he wasn’t the first teenager to go straight from high school to the NBA. Almost everyone who followed basketball believed that he would be the next great player in the league. Sports Illustrated had predicted just that when they put him on their cover the year before, along with the headline “The Chosen One.”
Still, no one really knew for sure how James would perform for the Cavaliers. Would the pressure be too much? Would he falter when going up against more experienced players?
LeBron answered those questions with a resounding “no” when he made his professional debut against the Sacramento Kings on October 29, 2003. In the first nine minutes of the game, he scored ten points, stole the ball, and assisted teammate Carlos Boozer on a slam dunk!
Moments after that assist, he raced the length of the court and threw down a dunk of his own, a monstrous right-handed tomahawk that would be featured over and over on the highlight reels. In all, James scored 25 points, ripped down 6 rebounds, dished 9 assists, and nabbed 4 steals. Those stats were the highest any prep-to-pro player had ever made in his first game. Not even Michael Jordan scored that many points in his debut.
As the season progressed, James continued to deliver outstanding performances, often earning double digits in more than one stat column. Despite this, the Cavs failed to win many games. On James’s nineteenth birthday, December 30, they posted their twenty-second loss of the season.
If LeBron was frustrated, he did his best not to show it. Instead, he stepped up his game even more, hoping to pull his team out of the cellar.
Stepping up his game is exactly what he did the night of March 27, 2004. The Cavs were hosting the New Jersey Nets. Both teams had lost four of their last five games, but overall the Nets had the better record, with 42 wins and 30 losses to the Cavs’ 32 wins and 42 losses.
LeBron entered the game determined that Cleveland would add another mark in its win column. While his shooting hand was cold early on — he took only four shots and made just one — he had three assists that put six points on Cleveland’s side of the board. But by the end of the first quarter, New Jersey had racked up more points on their side, leading 28–24.
Then the second period began, and suddenly James found the hoop. He scored nine points, including a three-pointer, in just over two minutes! Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep up the pace. Nor could his teammates. By halftime, the Nets had a ten-point lead. Another loss for the Cavs loomed on the horizon.
Or did it?
When the game resumed, LeBron went on a tear, scoring 11 points and passing for 4 assists. At the five-minute mark, he showed just how fired up he was by stealing the ball, dribbling madly to the other end, and slamming in a huge dunk. His play inspired his teammates to put the pedal to the metal. By the end of the third quarter, the Cavs had tightened the gap from 10 points to 3.
Unfortunately for Cleveland fans, the Nets once again took a commanding lead at the start of the last quarter. Their 3-point lead jumped to 5, to 7, and then to 11 with less than eight minutes left to go.
Once again, the Cavaliers looked poised for a loss.
Then something happened. In the middle of the fourth quarter, Cleveland began to score. In fact, they outscored the Nets 10–3 to tie it all up, 96–96, with less than four minutes remaining! The tying shot had come on a pass from LeBron. One free throw later, the Cavs had a single-point lead over the Nets.
Two minutes remained in the game. With the win suddenly in his sights, LeBron exploded, going on a scoring rampage. Boom! He drained a jump shot from nineteen feet out. Two points. Then he hit two free throws to bring his quarter total to four. Then, amazingly, in the last forty seconds he drove to the hoop three times for three more buckets—six, eight, ten!The last of these, a two-handed slam made with just two seconds on the clock, sealed the game for the Cavs, 107–104.
Those 10 points brought his game total to a career high of 41, making him the youngest rookie in NBA history to score 40 or more points in a single game. He also had a career high 13 assists, plus 6 rebounds and 3 steals, proving once more that for LeBron James, it was team first, self second.
“I hate losing,” LeBron reminded the press after the game. Then he broke out into his mile-wide smile and added, “Oh, man, you know it was exciting!”
LeBron James was named Rookie of the Year following his stellar first season with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Since then, he has continued to achieve great success, almost single-handedly raising the team from cellar dwellers to the top of the ranks. In his rookie season, their record improved from 17–65 to 35–47. Two years later, they reached the playoffs, and in 2007 they made it all the way to the Finals for the first time in the team’s history. That appearance ended in a loss to the Spurs, and the next year saw them bowing out in the semifinals. But with LeBron James in the lineup, the Cavs seem likely to show up in the postseason for many years to come.