LeBron James Opens Up on Why He Chose Philly, Jay-Z, Bronny & NBA Legacy

0:00LeBron James:This is the third time I've been a free agent. In 10 when I made a decision, I had my reasons. In 14, I had my reasons. When I went to LA eight years ago, I had my reasons. So as I think about my decision, it's not just about the team. Man, he's been one of my biggest inspirations. It was just an aura about him. You know, I say MJ was my biggest inspiration as far as basketball, but like Jay is like my big brother. Like he's the one who's given me like so much game and has taught me so much. That cool factor of what Deion Sanders brought to it, what King Griffey Jr. brought to the brand. I used to be embarrassed not to have a pair of Nike on.

0:35Those are nice, though. Those are cool. Thank you. They're cool. They're cool. Beyond the hobby that golf is, I would imagine that you're cooking something up. You're very smart, by the way.

0:45LeBron James:You know I'm not just playing it just for fun. There will be an end. When I'm done, I'll be 24, 25 years in. Yeah, 26 years, who knows? That's for sure when I know it'll be over for me. So LeBron, man, I've known you over 20 years. This is the first time we've ever done anything like this. I appreciate you being here. Thanks for having me. You know, I never have to retire. You understand that, right? In my world, I never have to retire. And I always think about it. For someone in your position, no matter how great you are, there will be an end. And everybody talks about the basketball side of things.

1:23And, you know, as fans, we talk about what it's going to be like to not be able to watch you play. But for you as a person, as an individual, how have you started to grapple with the emotional side of knowing that the end is near and the sadness that may come into that? Well, I mean, I think it's having the realization that there's an end to everything, you know.

1:44LeBron James:And, you know, my favorite basketball player of all time and my inspiration growing up was Michael Jordan. It was an end for him. So if it was an end for one of the greatest to ever play the game of basketball that I ever watched play basketball, then it's inevitable it's going to happen to all of us. So it's just being in reality and actuality at the same time. So, you know, I know that, you know, the game of basketball will always be with me no matter what. But also I am very conscientious in understanding that, you know, once it's over, then that's fine too. You know, because it's about the things that you did when you played a game and the path that you laid while you was playing the game and being able to lay comfortably after you're done and be like, okay, I gave it everything I had and the game was good to me and I poured it into the game itself.

2:31LeBron James:You mentioned Mike though. Mike has talked about how hard it was for him, right? Like he retired twice. He came back towards the end of his thirties in Washington. And, you know, if you see him get interviewed on, on any platform, he still talks like he can hoop. The idea though, of not having that in your life, you keep playing because you love it so much? Because it feels like you could play for another five, six, 10 years. I mean, I heard you earlier today say you could average 10 points a game until you were 65, and I believe it. But is it really just putting everything aside that you just love this game so much?

3:12LeBron James:No, I think for me, like one of the biggest factors as far as when the process for me becomes like overbearing and I don't want to show up to the arena five hours early or I don't want to be at practice two and a half hours before practice start or you know I don't want to get in the cold plunges no more and I don't want to you know eat well throughout the you know throughout the season or if I'm doing all the things that I know that's going to get me and put me in a position to play the game that I love at a high level that's when I know it's in for me. You know, I know for sure because there's no way I would be sitting up here and talking about a 23-year career up until this point.

3:53LeBron James:And if you factor in the 10 finals appearances, you probably could add on another four years to that. So you could probably look at like a 27-year career or something like that. So once the process becomes like so overbearing and I'm like, the alarm starts to go off and I'm like, I'm not getting up or I'm not going to work out or I'm not going to train. I'm not training in July. I'm not training in August to get ready for a season in October. That's for sure when I know it'll be over for me. So I'm not going to ask you about free agency. I'm sorry. But I've been there, so I know better. Yeah. But what I do know is you've been there before too and this is a different decision, a different time in your life.

4:38How does all of that inform how you look at this decision this time.

4:43LeBron James:Yeah, I mean, it's the third time I've been a free agent. Obviously, in 10, when I made a decision to go to Miami, I had my reasons. When I went back to Cleveland in 14, I had my reasons. So actually, this would be the fourth. And then when I went to L.A. eight years ago, I had my reasons. So, you know, for me now, you know, I have an almost 22-year-old son who is now my former teammate, which is hilarious. That's crazy. He's my former teammate. I have a 19-year-old son that's at the University of Arizona. But it's my almost 12-year-old daughter who is pulling the weight a lot. So going to my daughter, I was home for the 4th of July, My daughter came home after being out with her friends and cousins and everything, and I pulled her to the side.

5:38LeBron James:Because she's up as of age now, so like anytime I leave, she's like, Dad, where are you going? I'm like, I'm going with you. Like, where are we going? So I pulled her to the side, and I was like, baby, I'm letting you know I don't want you to hear from nobody else, but I won't be playing for the Lakers next year. I will be playing somewhere else, so I won't be home all the time. and you may not have an answer right now. You can give me an answer now. You can wait. You can write it down. Just want to know how you're feeling about it because you mean a lot to me. You know, me being away from you means a lot.

6:15You know, so the family portion is a big thing too.

6:19LeBron James:You know, my daughter and my wife and things of that nature and I'm a big family guy. So there's a lot of things that's, you know, people are like, hurry up and make a goddamn decision, Brian. It's like, okay. It's not just about the team. Yeah. So many other factors that I'm, you know, factoring in right now on what, you know, not only best fit me as a player, what best fit me as a person, what best fit me as a, what my happiness and also with my family as well. Yeah. You know, so there's a lot of, I will, I won't hold you guys up too much longer, but, but the family portion is huge for me. I saw Chris Paul say a few weeks ago in an interview when someone asked him about work-life balance and he was honest.

7:02He said there really isn't any. Is that truly what it feels like as a professional athlete? That as much as you are a family man, that ultimately it's impossible to balance it the way you would really want to.

7:14LeBron James:Yeah, of course, because, you know, you know, I come from a household where it was literally just it was me and my mom, you know. So, you know, it wasn't, you know, I didn't have the, you know, the father influence around, you know, I didn't have the sibling influence around, you know, single parent. I was so only child. My mom was a high school sophomore when she got pregnant with me. She had me as a junior in high school. So, you know, a lot of the things that I've seen growing up, I knew that I wanted to kind of just change the narrative of our family tree, you know, so, you know, it is challenging like when you're trying to change the family tree being present all the time but also at the same time understanding that I have a passion over here that pulls me away from that you know how do you balance that yeah you know how do you balance that to the best of your ability and I think the best thing I've had I've had a team around and a system around that has allowed me to focus on keeping the main thing the main thing and that was my passion for what I love to do and That's the sport of basketball.

8:18LeBron James:I'm building the game and inspiring people to want to play the game or just inspire people to want to be great at whatever they do while making sure the family was good on that side. So when I did come home, everything was still step and repeat. And you know, yeah, exactly. So, you know, I give so much damn credit to my wife, Savannah. She's unbelievable. My mom, unbelievable. My mother-in-law, my father-in-law, and then like my crew, Randy, Mad, Rich, like everybody has like chipped in in their moments of when needed. But the household is definitely ran by the queen for sure. She takes care of that.

8:53So I saw you at the Jay-Z shows living your best life last weekend. For sure. And I met you through Jay almost 23 years ago. You know, when you changed the game in many ways, but from a business perspective, you started to create a blueprint, which was that you don't have to wait till this is over, right? So Michael Jordan has an incredible career, but it was different. Magic built an incredible business. It was different. What was your time around Jay-Z like in the way that he informed you of how to look at business? Was it something he said? Or for me, I always say that it was really more of what I observed than how I watched.

9:36LeBron James:It's funny you say it. No, you literally just stole the words out of my mouth. So like, you got to think that I'm 41 now going on 42. And I met Jay and started hanging with Jay and their crew and our crew when I was 16. So I was 16 years old the first time I met Jay. Met him in Chicago. They were doing a show. He was on tour. I met him there. And then not too long after that, came to New York. And if a lot of you guys remember, there was a game that was supposed to be played in New York. And the blackout happened. and it never happened. It still probably would have been one of the greatest games ever played at Rucker Park history.

10:15LeBron James:But the thing that me and my crew, we really just watched Jay and how they moved and how he moved and was like a sponge. We didn't say much. We didn't ask for much. We just sat there. And he moved how a person that knows who he is and what he brings to the table is supposed to move, you know, and, you know, from the business side to the way he walked, to the way he talked, to the way he greeted people. Like, it was just an aura about him and a professionalism in his respective genre that we all kind of learned and we all kind of took to this point now. Like, you look at, you still see Emery and Tata and, you know, all the guys around him.

11:04LeBron James:that was around him 20 plus years ago, 25 years ago when I first met him. And it's funny, you saw me at the show, literally my first summer with them was the Blueprint album 25 summers ago. So, man, he's been one of my biggest inspirations. I say MJ was my biggest inspiration as far as basketball, but I never got an opportunity to hang with him or talk to him or whatever. But Jay is like my big brother. He's the one who's given me so much game and has taught me so much. And I'm always thinking about him. Anytime I'm doing something business-wise or making a decision or whatever, thinking like, is this going to make him proud?

11:44LeBron James:Or because he gave me so much game as a 16-year-old kid. Yeah. You know, you see everything that he's doing from, you know, obviously the music speaks for itself, but all the business ventures and everything that he's doing, being able to understand what you bring to the table and not taking less. And I'm not talking a monetary thing. I'm just saying like when I walk into the room he understood his position of power and how to use that as leverage for the betterment of himself and the people around him because I mean he comes from Marcy Projects in Brooklyn he know what it means to happen to scrap and grind for everything I come from you know Elizabeth Park Projects in Akron Ohio so I know exactly what it means to scrap and call for everything you know so it's a mindset and when you know you got That when you know you have the vision and you start to realize the power that you possess and now you know you could tap into these resources, you become unsolvable.

12:44And you mentioned Emery and Tata and his group of guys around him. Then you mentioned Randy, Mav, and Rich. I think what's always interesting about the three of them is, A, people talk as if those were your only three friends growing up, right? Where, like, you just chose the three people that were next. Right. And the three of them haven't just succeeded. They become the absolute best at what they do. What was the process of identifying that? And how did you look at people that you kept around you then? And how has it changed now? And how much harder has it gotten at this point in your life?

13:22LeBron James:Well, I mean, at this point, it hasn't gotten harder at this point in my life because those guys are my buffers. Yeah. Like when it comes to Randy Maverick, they're not letting anything that's not authentic to what I've built and what we've built to even get close, you know, to even infiltrating anything that we've done, you know. But, you know, I took a chance. I was a second-year guy in the NBA. No college education. You know, my education is my, what I had in high school, and then my street smarts and my book smarts from my OGs growing up. And I mean, shit, that shit goes a long way in this world.

14:08LeBron James:and to one of my greatest gifts is seeing you know the good and people even before they even know that they can accomplish those things and I saw that right away with Rich and Randy and Mav and I knew there was going to be a lot of things that was going to be said about us said about me because I wasn't doing it the traditional way of have an agent and let the agent kind of control everything and you just go play basketball and that's all you do. You know, and it was a young lady a couple of years ago. I don't even know if she's young, but I'm a respectable man. Told me to shut up and dribble.

14:45LeBron James:I'm a respectable man, so she's a young lady. But I wasn't playing the game by the same rules of the old regime. That's just how I felt. And I felt confident in my guys and I felt confident in what I was bringing to the table and what I had learned from my OGs and what I had learned from Jay and what I had learned from some other people or just watching it and watching it all unfold, that I could make a big splash in this whole thing, not only in the basketball world, but, you know, in the culture side as well. So, yeah, that was just my – that was my feeling about it. Oh, shout out OG too. OG, I met OG one of the first guys I met too with Jay.

15:24LeBron James:For New Yorkers, that's not OG Ananobi, man. Yeah, it wouldn't. Not an OG. Yeah. So I'm sure everybody in here knows that you've fallen in love with the game of golf. But you're a businessman, too. So beyond the hobby that golf is, as you look at this next phase of your life and your career, I would imagine that you're cooking something up. And I know, Matt, how do you see golf and how that can be integrated into what the business of LeBron James is? I mean, you're very smart, by the way. You're very smart. You know I'm not just playing just for fun. Yeah. That doesn't even make sense. Yeah. I just look at, like, kids that grew up like me, black kids like me.

16:13LeBron James:Like, I just became a member at one of my hometown country clubs called Portis Country Club. Another one is called Firestone. You guys might have heard of Firestone. Used to be PGA Tour stops there. We just had our last senior national tour stop there. and that was the last tournament at Firestone. But back to the main point of the conversation is, I never ever, not one time, went to those country clubs growing up. Not because I didn't want to, but probably I wasn't even allowed to set foot at those country clubs, you know, or be around those country clubs. So one of my main goals in not only of playing, you know, the game of golf with my friends and we have a great time.

16:59We go out there and mess around.

17:02LeBron James:Almost said a wrong word. I forgot what channel we was on. We go out there and mess around, but I want to be able to, and my goal is to open doors for kids that look like me growing up in the inner city, to be able to go to country clubs at seven, eight, nine years old, and be able to go out and caddy or be able to go out and rent clubs and be able to be coached and play the game of golf. And it's not because they can't afford it. It's because they have a passion of wanting to play that sport. Yeah. You know, so, you know, that is one of my passions. That's one of my goals. I will do it for sure.

17:41LeBron James:It's funny. I'm already in one of my housing communities and part of the IPS project and House 330 in my hometown of Akron, Ohio. on the backside of our medical center, we're already building a golf simulator. We're building two golf simulators and a putting green for all our families and our community in Akron, Ohio. We're going to start with that right off top. So we want to open doors that just wasn't wasn't being able to be open when I was younger. And to my friend group and my guys, what was open was outdoor basketball courts, you know, open fields that we can throw around football and play free frog or whatever you guys called it.

18:26LeBron James:That one was open to us. Certain golf courses and certain, you know, country clubs and things like that, we didn't have that avenue. So I want to be able to let, you know, kids from the inner city, you know, and it's not just black kids, but any kids that don't feel like they're welcome in an environment like that, I want them to feel welcome. It's funny to listen to sports commentators, period. But it's funny to listen to sports commentators as they analyze your decision. And you started playing golf, what, a year ago? Yeah, one year ago. And it's one of the main factors that everybody's speculating on.

19:08Like, well, how's he going to play golf in Cleveland in the winter? I would imagine golf can't be a integral part of your decision making, but is it something you are truly thinking about?

19:23LeBron James:Listen, I love golf. I really do. So I love. But golf is a sport that you can play for the rest of your life. Yeah. Back to the first question that you asked when I first came up here. when the end of basketball, when it gets to that point. So as I think about my decision, understanding, well, if I'm in a cold city, if I'm playing on the East Coast and now the golf course is closed in November compared to if I'm in the South and they never close. Listen, my main focus while I'm playing a game of basketball is to keep the main thing the main thing. And I've always have done that. I'll find a golf simulator if I'm in a cold for sure.

20:05LeBron James:that'll hold me over until they open up. But listen, keeping the main thing the main thing has always been the main focus for me. And that's the reason why everything has worked the way it's worked. I put my guys in a position to take care of everything out there while I focused on the game of basketball. And when it's time, you want to come over here and start to be a part of it and integrate yourself into that, but let's focus on the basketball portion first. And if we do that, the sky's the limit. Nike, you are one of the two or three biggest faces that Nike has ever had representing the brand.

20:44You've been with Nike for two decades. Obviously, Nike has gotten a lot of coverage. The stock is down. The culture don't love it the same. How does that feel for you with your position at Nike? And what do you think you can do and in general that Nike can do to start to think about the feedback that they're seeing, not just from the stock market, but from the people into the future?

21:10LeBron James:You got to get back into the roots. You got to get back to being out in the inner city, having runners. how I was when I first, when I was coming up, you had people that was literally out in the communities talking to these younger generations, asking them what they like, what they don't like. How do they feel about this? How do they feel about that? Like there's a responsibility as a Nike athlete to rule supreme. Because that's all I grew up on. That's all I know. That's all I've been a part of for two decades, being a part of Nike. And there's a responsibility that I feel responsible for on making sure, like, we're not dwindling.

21:52LeBron James:Like, it's always been a cool factor, like, to put on a pair of Nikes. When I made my decision at 17, while I wanted to be with Nike, the main reason was, like, what do I want to put on my feet when I leave my house every day? You know, it was that cool factor of what Deion Sanders brought to it, what Bo Jackson brought to it, what Barry Sanders brought to it, what King Griffey Jr. brought to the brand. You know, like all these unbelievable athletes, obviously MJ, like, come on, like, it was just so, it was such a cool factor, so can't lose our cool. Yeah. That is universal, and it doesn't matter if you're a newborn baby all the way to an 80-year-old man.

22:36LeBron James:Like, everyone wants to feel cool. Everyone wants to feel cool when they leave the house, man or woman, you want to feel a sense of cool, so, you know, I think just tapping back into that. I think that's really it. Like, it's the idea of like, I used to be embarrassed not to have a pair of Nike on. You know what I'm saying? Like, and don't look, though. I saw you look. Those are nice, though. Those are nice. These are cool, though. Those are cool. Those are cool. Thank you. They're cool. They got to make cool shit again. If you look at the pie of your life, no matter how much money you have, no matter how much success you've had, the businesses you've built, you own sports teams, you own media companies, you're on television yourself hosting your pod.

23:19You can really do what you want to some degree. Do you worry about though how you're going to fill that space or does that space never get filled again? Because it's not going to be golf, but what can fill that space in your mind do you think in the future? Or do you have to retire that part. Yeah, yeah.

23:36LeBron James:That part of the trilogy, that has to have its own situation. I can't feel the game of bastard. When I'm done, I'll be 24, 25 years in. 26 years, who knows, whatever, when I'm done. There's no way I can feel that void. But I can now focus myself on other things that I want to do and continue to do what I've been doing, continue to build on what we've been doing as a company. So yeah, I mean, I got a, I got a pretty good documentary in the works too. So yeah, it is going to be electric when I, when I'm done with it. So before we wrap up, you're one of the most famous people in the world. This is crazy when you even say something like that out loud.