Though He Sure As Hell
Doesn't Act Like It,
NBA Star Looks 35
One Great Season
Of all of the LeBron James facts, stats and blurbs I've read this week, the only one I remember is this one: "LeBron James is 25 years old."
I remember it not because he is a gleaming pillar of achievement to be admired for the amount he has accomplished in his short life through perseverance and hard work. I remember it because there is no way that LeBron James is 25 years old.
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If asked a week ago, I would have said he was 35. I know nothing of the average age of a basketball player, or how long James has been playing, or when he was first signed. And it's irrelevant anyway; he just looks 35.
Add that to my own recollections of being 25: living paycheck-to-paycheck, happy hours and hangovers, roommates and IKEA furniture. Still surprised I didn’t get summers off. But I guess comparison is the wrong approach.
Maybe I'm supposed to just bathe in his youthful fame: the young celebrity toying with the emotions of entire cities; "The Decision" to call a press conference to formally announce his next job.
He's got some gigantic stones, that LeBron James. And as far as the Heat or the Bulls or maybe even the Cavs are concerned, maybe he should have a birth certificate handy as well. Either way, I'd like to be there the day he realizes the world no longer revolves around those stones. Which could very well be tomorrow.