Cover Story: In A Candid Interview with Sports Illustrated, NBA Star LeBron James Talks 2011 Season, Offseason Work and Growing Up

Lebron opens up to Sports Illustrated about his father, Jay-Z and even Twitter

In the April 30, 2012, issue of Sports Illustrated—Miami Heat star LeBron James sat down for a rare one-on-one interview with senior writer Lee Jenkins. In the story “Meet the Rejuvenated and Revitalized LeBron” we find James at an emotional turning point following a tumultuous first season in Miami.  Interestingly, this feature appears 10 years after James made his SI cover debut as high school junior entitled “The Chosen One” (2.18.02).  The following are excerpts from the piece which will be on newsstands on April 25, 2012:

James on the stress of the 2011 season:

• “I lost touch with who I was as a basketball player and a person. I got caught up in everything that was going on around me, and I felt like I had to prove something to people, and I don’t know why. Everything was tight, stressed.”

Following a devastating loss to the Dallas Mavericks in the ‘11 NBA Finals, James spent two weeks virtually alone in his bedroom with barely any contact to the outside world except for infrequent visits from his mother Gloria James and soon-to-be-fiancé Savannah Brinson. James says:

• “I couldn’t watch TV because every channel—doesn’t matter if it was the Cartoon Channel—was talking about me and the Heat. On the Cooking Channel it was like, ‘So we’re going to make a turkey burger gourmet today, and LeBron James failed!’” During this he also shunned the razor growing a beard “I looked like Tom Hanks in Castaway” he told Jenkins.

During the interview Lebron came across as clearly a deeply thoughtful, reflective individual. Said James on the relationship with his father:

• “My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I use to always say, ‘Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?’ But as I got older I looked deeper though, ‘I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?’ It made me grow up fast. It helped me be more responsible. Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

James lists rapper Jay-Z among the very few people he looks to for advice and perspective, telling Jenkins about Jay-Z:

• “He grew up in the inner city, in [Brooklyn’s] Marcy projects, hearing, ‘You’ll be a statistic, you’ll never make it out’. Now we’re sitting here in New Jersey, and he owns part of the [Nets]. He tells me, ‘Remember where you came from, what got you here and why you love this game so much.’”

We also learn of interesting parallels between James’ life on the court and off-the-court. For example he made a major life-decision, in proposing to his long-time girlfriend Savannah Brinson this past New Year’s Eve, telling Jenkins:

• “Just like how I needed to take that next step as player, I also needed to take that next step as a man.”

James also decided it was time to stop hiding out and time to get away from what he called “the villain mind-set” that he adopted his first season in Miami. He told himself:

• “This is what you love to do and you’ve been doing it at a high level for a long time, and you don’t really need to change anything. Just get back to what you do and how you play, smiling all the time and trying to dominate at the highest level. Do it with joy and do it with fun and remember not too long ago this was a dream for you. Playing in the NBA was the dream. Don’t forget that again. Just go out and improve.”

This year, in the midst of one of the best seasons in NBA history, critics point to the fact that he’s shooting 38.6% in clutch situations. Obviously a point a frustration for James but not for the reasons you may think. He says:

• “It’s not the pressure of not wanting to fail. It’s the pressure of not wanting to let your teammates down. I hate letting my teammates down. I know I’m not going to make every shot. Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don’t feel because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win.”

This is a key reason why he isn’t resting even though the Heat seemed to be locked into their playoff position. He says,

• “It’s my choice. I’m looking for opportunities to get better, and if I sit out, I can’t get better. This is a no-excuse season for me. I’ve put everything into this season.”

As part of the feature, Jenkins looks to voices close to James for perspective. Some of the most profound came from teammate Shane Battier who says:

• “He’s one of a kind, because he’s the first to rise to prominence in the Information Age, which is why he’s such a fascinating sociological observation. He’s accountable every single day for every single thing, from how he plays to what he tweets to what he says in the pre- and the postgame interviews. He has a camera and a microphone on him wherever he goes, and then when he [goes out to] dinner, there’s a camera phone on him. This is what he signed up for. There is a price to pay. He understands that. But I don’t think a lot of guys could handle it.”

To his credit James embraces the Information Era becoming the most popular current American athlete on Twitter, with more than 4 million followers. He writes the tweets himself, and reads the replies, even the ones that sting, saying:

• “Twitter can be an angry place. But I don’t think people mean no harm. Look, I wish it wasn’t just us in this restaurant. I wish I could be here with all my fans and we could all sit down together and have a nice dinner tonight. Twitter is a way to try to do that.”