LeBron James at the 1997 YBOA National Championships
Crazy that he was already throwing those kinds of passes at 12
My first thought when watching this. What kid makes those kind of passes, let alone is even thinking about passing haha
I’m imaging 12 year old me at an AAU tournament watching him, knowing I’ll have to play against him eventually and he’s throwing around those telekinetic bullshit passes lol
L mao the first clip of him at the free throw line. He still doing that same mannerisms till this dayy!
first thing i noticed lmao
Same little glance! He’s been doing it for 30 years!
In 1997? Anyone watching the Bulls destroy the NBA.
Shows how innate those skills need to be
They asked Jokic how can you make those ridiculous passes and he said something like I don’t know, I throw them where I want them to go and they just land, they always have.
Reminds me of the stories about Gretzky being a bad coach. He got frustrated with players because he couldn’t fully explain to them how to do what he did on the ice. To him it was obvious what they should do in any situation, but almost no one could replicate it when he tried to explain.
It shouldnt take away from how hard they have to train, too many people are working their ass off to compete for the naturally gifted to not put in effort, but seeing those individuals who just have a different level of processing power is always cool to see.
I heard a similar story about when George Brett was a Royals coach. Just hit the ball. Why can’t you do that?!
Thierry Henry as a soccer coach. He was like, why can’t you dribble 4 players in the area and score??
Applies outside of sports too. Musicians who just look at an instrument and intuitively know how to make it talk are not usually great at telling other people how to do it
Even walking. I’m sure you’re great at walking but if you had to get up in front of a class and explain how walking works, good luck
Which is funny, because Brett worked extensively with one of the most famous hitting coaches, Charlie Lau, and Lau had an 11 year MLB career as a light-hitting backup catcher.
You kind of see this with chess too. Magnus is awful at explaining his thought process because so much of it is instinct for him. Whereas Hikaru, Danya(RIP), Levy do a much better job of explaining and being entertaining.
https://youtu.be/PZFS0kewLRQ?is=JJ7U_grzGKlhdlH7
Here Magnus talks about it
“Most of the time I know what to do, I don’t have to figure it out.”
“Usually I can feel it immediately.”
Hikaru is kind of easy to follow along as he explains it too up until the point where he draws the arrows all over the screen and explains like 8 moves ahead, then the opponent does a different move and he proceeds to explain other 8 moves directly after lol, just super GM things
“takes, takes, takes, takes, check, takes, takes, check… That can’t be right”
I legitimately think he could’ve played in the NBA at 15 or 16
Nah there’s a big physical difference a few years makes
Ron Artest, one of the best defenders ever, played him at 16 and said he was NBA ready
Ron might have meant that but he said that on a podcast IIRC and there’s always an incentive to exaggerate and hype shit from the past up when you’re sitting around reminiscing, just to put on a better show.
I don’t know, LeBron averaged 20-5-5 as an 18-19 year old. Could he have been a bench player putting up a few points per game at 16? Maybe?
We saw Luka at 16 play for Real Madrid’s senior team. LeBron probably wouldn’t have gotten minutes besides late season garbage time, but I’m sure he’d have been rostered. Who knows though, he may have even been a role player at 16 in the NBA, which is absurd to think about.
He would’ve been rostered because he was already a top prospect. But he’d still be a kid in a man’s league. The progress from 15-16 to 18-19 physically is significant.
You’re thinking about the average 15-16 year old and not Lebron.
He wasn’t 6’9” at 15.
LeBron dropped 25/6/9 with 4 steals on 59%TS in his first NBA game against a Finals contender. That was the same calendar year he was playing against high schoolers. LeBron absolutely could’ve played in the NBA at 16 and probably would’ve averaged over 10ppg.
Yep easily, the real debate and applies to everybody except about 5 people in NBA history, is were they capable of playing a season that young.
LeBron, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, maybe Shaq and of course the Luka thing
Would be about the only ones capable
i saw 16 year old lebron, he was NBA ready at that age. at 17 he was easily better than a majority of the NBA.
George Gervin made comments about Magic Johnson playing pickup as a 15yo in Michigan with NBA pros and being able to run an NBA level offence at that age.
When you’re that good it’s possible
LeBron easily had NBA level ability by 15-16, and would have easily been capable of playing NBA minutes if he was thrown into a game.
The real issue is, there is no way a 15yo body, even one as freakish as LeBron is ready for 82 games x 30 mins a night, regardless of basketball skills and IQ
Ron Artest was known for his judgment in the early 2000s
That same judgement also made him notorious lol
You mean Meta World Peace who is a very rational person said that?
He was a tank at 16 lol watch his high school highlights. He was 6’4 as a freshman and 6’8 by his junior year which is the same height he is today
He can play as point guard though.
He is still bigger than most point guard, and the strength disparity wouldn’t be as great as a forward.
American sports are weird where we refuse to believe these kids can compete with adults in pro leagues, meanwhile across the world 16 year olds are making their debuts in soccer against grown men looking to break their legs lmao.
LeBron could 100% have been coming off the bench as a 16 year old.
Soccer isn’t a physical sport
He could have done it at 16, there was buzz that he was going to come out his junior year at the time. You can find video of him when he was 16 and he was already physically ready at that point.
he’s still an under-rated passer imho
Hard to be underrated when he’s probably a top 5-10ish passer all time. Guys in that conversation include Magic, Stockton, Nash, Bird, probably Jokic now, and maybe Kidd and CP3? I think I’d probably have Lebron no lower than fifth myself.
For me he’s the best passer of all time bar Magic.
CP3 is more clinical, Luka is more calculated, Jokic has more flair, Harden and Westbrook are more flashy, Stockton was more methodical, Kidd was more calculated. When the situation needed it LeBron can replicate all of them. None of them can execute the open court passes LeBron’s size and athleticism allows him to.
That’s why Magic and LeBron are the top 2 passers of all time. They’re fast and they’re 6’9”, nobody else can make the athletic plays they can.
maybe, but damn Jokic is something else
I coached with a guy who coached against LeBron in AAU.
He said LeBron tore them apart and had like 10 points but 25 assists. Just the best court vision out of a 14 year old.
I worked with the #1 ranked 4th grader in the nation at a Baltimore summer camp a while ago (these “rankings” come from scouts watching the best players at the AAU national championship tournament). His name was Justin Jenifer, who I only name since he went on to be a starter at Cincinnati about 8 years ago.
His passing at 9 years old was like LeBron’s in this video. He was short (listed as 5-ft-10 in college, so obviously way shorter at that time, even for his age), and they had him playing up with older kids, but his dribbling and passing were insane for how young he was.
Yes it’s crazy LeBron was throwing these passes at 12, and every once in a blue moon, you may see another high-level player doing the same.
Tbf, it’s a lot easier vs other 12 year olds
A 12 yr old kid making that passes gahhdamn , a 12 yr. old me making that passes?hellnah, im bout to be in mamba mode for the rest of the game lmao, thats why im here making excel passes on my pc rn LMAO
Craziest thing for me is how he’s not bigger than the others. I was expecting him to cartoonishly tower over everyone else even at 12
This can’t be LeBron, this kid actually passed the ball!
Lazy ragebait
You know less than nothing about LBJ, clearly
Clearly I do. You must be regarded!
25th highest career APG of all time, averaged more than 8 assists for 7 seasons, has averaged 10 assists in a season, has only one season with fewer than 6 apg (and he averaged 5.9). One of the greatest passers of all time doesn’t pass, so says Former-Government-51. You’re a moron! and too pussy to use the actual slur because you’re scared of Reddit moderators
Bro that guy sucks now! You and him both need to take a seat!
when he passed 🤪
I had to catch myself. I almost expected him to yam on the fast break lol
😂 alright I’m not the only one. I don’t know why I was expecting him to put some kid on a poster but I was anticipating it.
I teach in a K-8 and we absolutely have a few 7th And 8th graders that can dunk, so it isn’t totally absurd.
I could dunk at the end of 8th grade and I’m not super special.
Ok Captain America
I could in 10th and could not ever again shortly after. While technically not an injury I do count finding weed and getting fat to be a disability.
Same. I was like “is he about to…?”
Waiting for that tomahawk 😭😭
Alot of NBA guys say they first dunked at 12, so wouldnt doubt it
It’s funny watching him have exactly the same moves and mannerisms
Basketball is all he’s ever known
Id be curious to see if he can actually stay away when he retires.
He’s got golf now. But I hope he would continue Mind the game podcast. And go on all kind of podcasts to talk shit, lmao.
I hope he goes to the Big3 and continues to terrorize his peers
LeConsistent
Seriously lol like you could tell so early on just how special this dude was. Just in a complete class of his own on the basketball court from the day he started to the day he hangs em up.
Just the way he looks around before the jump ball, you can tell he’s hyper vigilant
Lmao these threads already start off reasonable and then you all start making comments like this
They can’t help themselves lol. Always someone going extra mile
I don’t see what’s so far fetched about it, he has some of the best court awareness of any NBA players ever, and it’s showcased in this video. You can see him rapidly mapping out where everyone is on the court, and it looks a lot more intense and purposeful than most 12 year olds to me.
Watch an AAU game and you’ll see that look after every TO lol, even from the trash kids
He makes that exact same expression to this day
The back pedal after the make in transition has me crying
The clip of him looking around on the free throw line is exactly what he still does today
And the spin move to get back to his left in transition
Now realize that most adults you see are some version of their middle-school self.
It gets scary, quick.
That, and even without the size and athletic freak features, he’s still such an incredible basketball mind.
Bro had the passing vision from day 1
Generational passers (e.g., Magic, LeBron, Nash, Jokic, etc.) usually do. You can get better as a playmaker and passer, but the ability to throw voodoo passes like these guys do/did can’t be taught to a large degree.
I’ve always felt this way, but Lavar Ball of all people made me question that.
It seems like quite the coincidence the two kids he developed as PGs both had the passing instincts/feel/creativity we always say can’t be taught in Lonzo and LaMelo
They grew up playing a really funky way, and it’s probably not to be entirely replicated, but there’s something to take from it. Most people just won’t get over their ego to acknowledge it because Lavar is also definitely crazy lol
Ngl lavar did everything right except the whole shoes thing
Lamelo imitated Lonzo. They grew up together, it’s pretty normal in my opinion..
You expect him to be physically dominant, but here he isn’t yet. Same size as the other kids. It’s the passing and the controlled poise that are so unusual and stand out. Who at 12 plays that under control?
The vision jumps off the screen but also look at the burst and behind the back on the fast break at 1:00. That is just different
More so the confidence and the velocity of those passes.
At 12 you’re not passing such absolute bullets, the vision can be ok but the confidence and ability to send them with that speed is eye opening for a 12 year old.
This is probably close to the last time that a normal person with regular hoops experience could realistically beat him 1v1. I’m talking like a 20-35yo who’s pretty athletic and always the best player at gym runs.
After he hit his growth spurt, which I’m guessing was in the next year or 2, probably draw the line at D1 college players. By the time he was 16, 4 years later, there’s no chance of an amateur beating him. Maybe like a couple future NBA players at the time or something.
And I know 1v1 wasn’t really LeBrons strength, especially at this stage in his life. But just the size and athleticism on defense would dwarf most amateurs after his growth spurt, they would have to rely on a jumper shooting over a 6+ frame with insane reach and bounce. And on offense he could just blow by any amateur and yam it.
Those passes at 12 years old though damn
The passes are fucking crazy. Kinda proves he always had that mindset.
Most talented player in history
Most talented? No. But most talent combined with size and athleticism? Yes.
He is kind of like Tom Brady where I am sure you can find an individual or two in every single category of what comprises “basketball talent” who are better than him at it, but he is in the top 3-5 of almost every category
You think Lebron is top 3-5 in shooting?
Oh no I beefed it
oh god I’m sorry
Yeah, Tom Brady was never EVER the most athletic QB in the league. He wasn’t even in the top 5 for the entirety of his career. WTF are you talking about?
Ill have you know Brady rushed for over 1k
What’s talent if not exactly what you’re seeing here?
He was pushing to come into the league at 17, because he was good enough at that age already. In fact I think he’d have gone #1 over Yao Ming in 2002 had he been allowed to declare for it
What? I literally said he had talent haha. There are simply other players with more pure talent.
Let me put it this way: imagine if you put Steve Nash in Lebron’s body. See how that would be a better player than Lebron? That’s because Nash had more talent, he just didn’t have the size or athleticism to go with it. Talent and physical gifts are very different things.
I don’t think Nash was as skilled as LeBron, he was amazing but LeBron’s skillset is far more than just playmaking.
You don’t think the guy who won 2 MVPs while LeBron was in the league despite being 6’3 190lbs with very limited athleticism was more skilled than Lebron?
No, not really
Who’s most talented then? Steph?
It’s me
Chris Kaman
Steph, Nash, CP3, etc. Playing at that level despite not having the physical gifts necessarily requires more talent.
if he was coming up today they’d just let him play point full time. kinda funny how he low-key got pigeon-holed into being a “scoring wing” at the beginning of his career just cuz of his height.
Yeah, he should’ve averaged at least 8 assists from the start of his career
Wait…
2020 Bron was glorious to witness. He finally played full time PG and led the league in assists
He literally was the starting point guard from day 1 lol. Their backcourt was Bron and Ricky Davis.
Why did I expect him to dunk on a breakaway
Because it’s LeBron James.
I didn’t even exist yet and this man had the IQ of Magic Johnson at 12 years old
Maybe if you would’ve put in the work to exist earlier then you too could’ve had the IQ of Magic Johnson
Hey you can have the iq of magic too. Just his non basketball iq.
Crazy poise for a 12 year old
LeBron was still better than everyone when he was their size.
Where tf does a video like this even come from? Amazing find though. Stopped what I was doing and watched it 3 times over lol
Probably found in some grandma’s basement (unaware of who was in it) while moving or something
It’s crazy how much better he was making his teammates at 12
He’s right guyz, he’s a pass first guy
Bro was already a flashy passer at 12. Lmao.
this is really cool to see. can’t believe i haven’t ever seen it before.
Yea all those which would you choose beating LeBron at what age for $$$, hope you didn’t pick over 10 because 12 year old Bron is rolling you
you should go like always go 95 or something in these scenarios
12 yo Lebron still too small for most adults who have played significant basketball in their lives IMO. Idk when he hit his growth sourt but at that point hes too much.
This is when he peaked
When he got that steal at 0:53, I deadass thought he was about to throw a tomhawk lmao
The court vision was there in middle school
Damn I can’t imagine what it’s will be like for him to step away from basketball. That’s all he has known for so long.
He definitely playing golf nonstop after retirement.
Remember watching that one live
You’d expect him to be dominating with size and physicality but no, his mindset and skill shine
The fact he was making those passes at 12 years old is just…wow. He’s had it since day one.
Who is this kid? He might have a future in the NBA or something
No wonder bro doesn’t seem to want to retire, he’s played basketball his entire life
Put this LeBron on the 97 bulls and they still win the championship
Then he started to dunk. And history unfolds as we know it.
The passing stands out so much. Man it’s crazy how the eye test def shines through at times lol. But it’s crazy seen him make passes like that in the NBA as well.
shizz that finesse is insane like he was not yet the freight train and then after a decade he added power and strength to that finesse.
Lmao the first clip of him at the free throw line. He still doing that same mannerisms till this day
Incredible footage holy shit
Wow cant believe this was only checks notes 30 YEARS AGO
That’s when I said, I told my buddy. At the barbershop or something. I had a feeling. So i told him. This kid right here. I just had a feeling. He could play in the league. I know on the socials people will clown me and say well no LeDuh, you’re that kid, of course you’d say that about yourself. But not a lot of people said that about that kid back then. I did though.
He looks faster and athletic than everyone on the court, and plays point.
man is always been unselfish.
I half expected him to dunk it on that one break away.
kind of disappointing i was expecting some windmill dunks
Bron would’ve bbq chickened me when he was 10
Gotta be cool to say you guarded a future star athlete. Then mention they dropped 50 on you
I have a question which isn’t thoughtful enough to warrant a post of its own: if Lebron never improved after entering the league how good could he actually be? Could he still be an MVP caliber player?
Man I’m just expecting him to bang out after the steal 🤣
I really thought he was gonna dunk that shit at 0:55
Average Shooting Stars Basketball Association is a name of all time. So cool to see him before all the physical gifts hit.
A natural passer lol. He was meant to be a playmaker
Probably the closest they can match with LeBron in athleticism.
Definition of generational talent
Why he not dunking the ball?
He’s fucking 12
What’s wild is he went from this to international superstar and espn cover just a few years later
Golden State got a good one
The skip passes are literally the same as today lmao
Holy shit I didn’t know he was that good at 12 that’s legit crazy
He’s still playing 29 years later. Insane
Lakeland, FL in the house!
Crazy to see the difference in school and college basketball before and after the 3 point revolution, Lebron is really good at passing in these clips but a 12 yo Lebron today would be shooting those shots.
“this kids gonna be in the league in 30 years”
Where does LeBron rank in the all-time passers in the game. Top 10?
Statistically, yes. People can argue about the eye test all they want.
oh he did the thing he did last playoffs vs rocket game 3
He had 27-7-7 this game
Seriously this dudes documentary is gonna be longer than all the LOTR movies combine.
LeProdigy
That vision is just sublime.
I know he exerted a lot of effort to get to where he is at right now, but dang, you already see his game right here. Sometimes you’re just freakin’ born with it.
Man, we in charlotte can’t win anything. LeBron, you can’t let us at least have a 12 and under YBOA championship?
If he stopped growing earlier we’d likely be talking about him as the greatest PG ever.
This pass first 12 year old is the all time leadimg scorer. How insane is that?
This is closer to the decision than to today
pfft no tomahawks…4/10 meh performance.