LeBron James’s Philly Connections Run Back Nearly 25 Years
The new Sixer first played in Philly in 2002, as a high school junior.
LeBron James in action at the 2003 Primetime Shootout in Trenton, playing for St, Vincent-St, Mary / Photograph by Al Tielemans/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
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LeBron James’s announcement that he was signing a two-year deal with the Sixers means the greatest-of-all-time short-lister will likely end his remarkable NBA career in Philadelphia. It’ll be the first chance for Sixers fans to cheer for King James as one of their own, but hoop heads with a sense of history might know that LeBron’s nearly quarter-century in the national spotlight includes some memorable early appearances in (or very near) the city.
His first trip to Philly came about as a bit of fortunate timing. This was February 2002, when James, then a high school junior, and his St. Vincent-St. Mary team traveled from Akron, Ohio, to Trenton, N.J., to face perennial prep power Oak Hill Academy in a showcase dubbed the Primetime Classic. As an editor at Slam, a monthly basketball magazine, I’d been covering James since the previous spring, when we published the first national profile on the high schooler who was already being compared to Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant. For me, the quick trip from New York to Philly was a no-brainer, both because James would be facing top-ranked senior Carmelo Anthony, and because Philly was hosting the 2002 NBA All-Star Game later that same day.
James’s first big national showcase game was memorable enough: He scored a game-high 36 points in a six-point loss to Anthony and Oak Hill, which at the time was the top-ranked high school team in the country. But probably more significantly for James’s already growing legend, he played in a pair of super-rare (about three dozen pairs ever produced) Adidas Kobe 2 “Flag” shoes, gifted to him (via Adidas reps, whose company outfitted St. Vincent-St. Mary at the time) by Bryant himself. The reps also provided James with the All-Star Game tickets that he used to watch Bryant — the Lakers star serenaded by boos, despite his Philly-area roots, during and after the game at the then-First Union Center — win that year’s All-Star MVP award.
Well, this aged well. The Sporting News asked “Is LeBron James overrated?” in 2003. / Photograph via Getty Images
His first chance to actually play in Philly came about 10 months later, on the Sunday before Christmas. He was, by then, one of the biggest stories in American sports, with highlights popping up regularly on ESPN’s SportsCenter. That explained why the crowd at the Palestra was testing the fire marshal’s tolerance when St. Vincent-St. Mary lined up against Strawberry Mansion, whose own star senior, Maureece Rice, was about to break Wilt Chamberlain’s city scoring record.
The day before the game, James and his teammates took the chance to wander from their Center City hotel and do some sightseeing. That included a stop at the unremarkable storefront on Walnut Street that was then home to Mitchell & Ness. This was early in the “throwback” jersey era, driven by rappers like Jay-Z and ballplayers like Allen Iverson, chief trendsetters of the cultural moment and personal favorites of James’s. He shared something particular with Iverson at the time: a mother who, much like Iverson’s mom Ann when he broke into the league, was a regular courtside feature at his games, usually wearing a custom jersey and handing out cardboard photos of her son’s face mounted on popsicle sticks.
LeBron James’s mother Gloria shows her support during her son’s high school St. Vincent-St. Mary’s game against Mater Dei, in Los Angeles in January 2003. / Photograph by Lucy Nicholson/AFP via Getty Images
James left the shop with a throwback jersey, for which he’d been granted the friends-and-family discount — 50 percent off. A couple of months later, the folks in charge of Ohio’s high school athletics association suspended James for receiving a couple of free throwbacks from a store near Akron. That suspension made national news and landed in the courts before it was eventually overturned. Thankfully, his Mitchell & Ness discount never came up.
As for the game: In front of a standing-room crowd that included Philly rap luminaries Beanie Sigel and Freeway, a handful of Eagles players, and (arriving at halftime, appropriately) Iverson himself, James and his teammates overwhelmed Rice and the hometown squad, 85-47. James scored 26 points and flirted with a triple-double, proving himself worthy of the respect of a hoop-savvy Philly crowd that hooted when Rice crossed him over late in the game, but still applauded his undeniable excellence.
Program for the 2003 Primetime Shootout / Photograph by Ryan Jones
In February 2003, Center City was once again home base for James and his teammates in their return to the Primetime Shootout in Trenton. The game, against nationally ranked Westchester High School of Los Angeles, was his first back from that absurd suspension, and the buzz of expectation was as high as it ever got during his traveling circus of a high school career. James’s answer, in front of a sold-out crowd numbering 9,000 and hundreds of credentialed media: 52 of his team’s 78 points in a blowout victory.
For the Philly-area fans lucky enough to see him in person at the time, LeBron James in high school displayed the dazzlingly complete skillset and knack for big moments in big games that have defined his career ever since. He’ll be 42 in December, and Sixers fans will expect nothing less than more of the same.
