LeBron James Talks About ESPN’s ‘The Last Dance’
Written by SOURCE on May 19, 2020
It’s officially a wrap on The Last Dance so, provided you’ve watched all ten episodes about the Jordan-era Bulls doc, you’re now free to craft a fully-formed two cents about it.
Whether anybody actually cares about those two cents? Well, there’s not much we can do to help you with that. Usually you have to be in a position of relevance to the topic at hand for anybody to give a fuck. That’s just the way it goes.
On a very related note, LeBron James, a guy who’s frequently compared to Michael Jordan (in often forced and insufferable ways), appeared on an Uninterrupted after show to talk about how he felt now that the ESPN mega-series has concluded.
The discussion about that particular topic begins around 4:17 in the footage above (far more details about that at the bottom of this write-up).
Here’s some of the highlights of the discussion for those of you too busy to watch in full, but not too busy to keep reading.
In the discussion, LeBron talked about how he viewed Jordan while growing up.
“Michael was that angel sent from heaven…I kinda used him to get through some of the darkest days that I had,” James said. “When you’re a 9 year old kid and you need inspiration from someone they become your father which I needed, they become your brother, they become your teammate, they become your pastor, they become your superhero. It’s like Batman and Michael Jordan for me when I was growing up. Those were the 2 best superheroes in the world.”
Here’s a clip:
Definitely cried this day. 9 years of age. Just Couldn’t believe it
— LeBron James (@KingJames) May 11, 2020
He went on to speak about what it was like when the two first met in person, which happened in Chicago, when LeBron was 16-years-old.
“It’s 2 people I met in my life that have changed my life… My wife who I met in 2002, and when I met Michael Jordan in 2001…you know what, let me throw Jay-Z on there too,” he remembered. “I literally couldn’t believe it was him. I couldn’t believe it…The dude looked like Jesus Christ to me. He was Black Jesus to me.”
He said that the meeting happened in a gym where Jordan and Charles Oakley were lifting.
“We go upstairs…We walk up there and the first person I see is Charles Oakley…Oak moves and when Oak moved Mike is sitting on the bench press and I was like oh my fucking God. I didn’t think he was real man you don’t understand. I didn’t think Michael Jordan was real. I only thought he lived in the TV,” he continued.
Prior to that tidbit, however, he said there was some truth to the rumors that he had been considering playing football during the NBA’s 2011 lockout. Oh what could have been.
“Myself and my trainer, we really started to actually train to be a football player when it came to like October and November. We started to clock our times with the 40’s. We started to add a little bit more in our bench presses and things of that nature,” he said. “The thoughts came into my mind. Never having the ability to finish my high school career playing my senior year I have dreams all the time about playing football.”
He also talked about the difference between the ’92 Olympic Dream Team and the 2008 Redeem Team he was a member of, though he hedged on answering who would win (it doesn’t really matter anyway).
“One thing about the 92 team is they had a lot of grown ass strong men,” he said. “Those guys be lifting cars. You ever seen the Strongest Man Competitions on ESPN? Charles, Malone, Ewing, Robinson, those guys are like brute strong. One thing about the ‘08 team we got a lot of wiggle to our game…It definitely would have been a hell of a game.”
Finally he talked about the possible return of the 2019-20 NBA season, which remains in limbo. Whether you walk away from this optimistic or pessimistic *shrugs*
“Definitely not giving up on the season…Myself and my teammates, the Lakers organization we wanna play,” he said of the ongoing COVID-19 induced delay. “There’s a lot of players that I know personally that wanna play. We don’t ever wanna jeopardize the health of any of our players, or any of the players families…This is a pandemic that we have no idea, we can’t control it…We’re going to listen to people in the hierarchy that’s been following this pandemic, following the numbers, following the data.”
Note the video up top for those who wish to view/listen to this in full. Uninterrupted broke down the topics with time stamps, which was nice, in their info. Those go as follows. Choose what you think is interesting:
4:18 — Last Dance Series Reactions
11:29 — MJ’s 93 Retirement
15:23 — LeBron Training to Play Football in 2011
17:27 — LeBron’s First Time Meeting MJ
21:42 — Origin of MJ & Young LeBron Photo
27:16 — LeBron & Kobe Team USA 2008 Story
30:48 — 1992 Dream Team vs 2008 Redeem Team
33:40 — Leadership Styles
40:01 — Which Season Would LeBron Document?
42:13 — Teaching Bronny
43:48 — 2020 NBA Playoffs
