As LeBron James nears the end of his basketball career, the Los Angeles Lakers star has essentially accomplished all there during his time in the league.
He continues to disprove the narrative of Father Time being undefeated by reverting the clock several times this season. The 40-year-old’s strict regimen to keep his body healthy and ready to go on each game continues to work in his favor.
However, there was always speculation of James playing in the NFL given his body type and physicality. On his recent appearance on New Heights with Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce, the four-time champion detailed how he contemplated a football career during the 2011 NBA lockout:
“Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. The only time I’ve like really taken it like super duper serious was, I think it was 2011 when we had the NBA lockout. I didn’t know when we were going to make the deal with the owners and get our league back going. So, I actually thought about it a little bit back then. I was still young enough to get out there with y’all. That’s the only time I’ve actually seriously considered it, I’ve had serious dreams about this shit all the time, all the time. And you know what, my dream never actually, the ball is never kicked off. It’s me in the warm ups, it’s me coming out running my routes and then right when the game started, I was like f***ing wake up or some shit. I’m like okay, that lets me know that I’m not supposed to be out there.”
Given James’ interest in football, there was interest from schools as well. One being Ohio State, which the Akron native is an avid fan of and he revealed that the Buckeyes wanted him to come to their university:
“[Jim] Tressel knocked on the door plenty of times. They wanted me to come up there and be a two sport, i.e. Travis Hunter. We saw what Travis Hunter did this year, you know with Colorado. But, definitely, they knocked on the door and it’s like, ‘If you come down to Ohio State, we want you to play both sides.’ I would have definitely thought about that. My best friend at the time, Shion Cotton, went off to Ohio State, full-ride to Ohio State and he played for Ohio State football. So, that would have been super dope. I could have roomed with him, played football during the fall, basketball during the winter and spring. So, that would have been dope.”
It is interesting to see that the path to being a dual sport athlete was there for James in terms of a potential collegiate career. Things did not materialize but presents an intriguing hypothetical scenario on the kind of football player that he could have been.
LeBron James admits NFL owned NBA on Christmas Day
The NFL has been trying to create competition with the NBA these past few years on Christmas Day by having football games on the holiday. Ultimately, the NBA had more close, exciting games on Christmas, but LeBron James admitted the NFL owned the NBA when it came to viewership.
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