October 30, 2003

LeMan

After the game was over, just before 1:00 a.m. Eastern, the basketball Talking Heads on ESPN and ESPN2 were all raving about what they had just seen. Some admitted to having been skeptical. No more.

25 points, 9 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 steals, assorted dunks, finger-rolls, alley-oops, no-look passes, routine jumpers, and a last second airball that finally allowed the Sacramento Kings crowd to "boo" instead of "oooh".

It was the NBA debut of LeBron James. If he was nervous at the beginning, he showed it by scoring or assisting on five of the team's first seven baskets. Better yet, this Cavaliers team that won only three road games a year ago, came all the way back from a 19-point deficit to take a brief 4th quarter lead against what may be the best team in the NBA.

They were led by James, but he is surrounded by some very good young players this year in Carlos Boozer, J.R. Bremer, and Ricky Davis among others. The 106-92 loss itself was insignificant to Cleveland fans, NBA execs and Nike stockholders, although LeBron said all the right things in the postgame interview. You know; individual statistics don't mean much, we didn't win the game, blah, blah.

Anybody who watched it knows what was important. The kid is for real.

UPDATE 10/30: More from the LeBron-a-Thon, this article from Marc Stein at ESPN.com.

And a couple from the Plain Dealer, here and here.

Posted by dan at October 30, 2003 1:40 AM