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LOS ANGELES – The sun had already set when LeBron James and his high school teammates stopped at the beach in a long limousine Cadillac Escalade. They came straight from the airport with 50 cent sounding loudspeakers.
"It was dark as hell", Willie McGee, one of the other players of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, recalled during a telephone interview. "But I had never seen the ocean."
That was in January 2003. A young 18-year-old dawn of a world celebrity, James arrived with his team on this auspicious trip to Los Angeles for a televised match at the ### 39; national scale against the Mater Dei High School, a basketball central Santa Ana, California. But first, the beach. Unlike James, most of his teammates traveled to California for the first time.
"This is one of the best things about this trip," said Romeo Travis, another player on this team. "For us guys from Ohio, being there to hit 50 cents in a limousine was surreal."
As for the game itself, which was played at Pauley Pavilion, on the U.C.L.A. campus, James actually shot the ball in a tight victory. But his struggles mattered little: during one night, in the biggest stage of his embryonic career, in one of the most glamorous cities in the world, he was the biggest star of all.
"I do not remember it because it was a good match," said Sonny Vaccaro, former executive of Nike and Adidas sitting at the edge of the court, "but because it was historic."
James, 33, has spent the many years that have passed since his formation trip to Los Angeles, touring the city in a strange and different way, making cameos at the Staples Center for games against the Lakers and Clippers . He started a production company in 2008 to feed his passion for television and cinema and reap the riches they could bring, and then opened an office on the Warner Bros. lot. He bought a multi-million dollar house here in 2015 and another this summer.
Over the years, he has found pleasant weather. He developed an interest in the city's art scene. His wife likes it here. He recently put his kids to school here. And now he has overthrown the N.B.A. by joining the Lakers, instantly replacing them in the playoff image, while pretending to be a nabob.
"We made a decision," James told reporters recently, referring to his family, "that this would be our next trip."
James, four times N.B.A. best player, will make his regular season debut with the Lakers Thursday night during their visit to the Portland Trail Blazers. He was adamant that his decision to sign with the Lakers this summer was a basketball decision – he wanted to rise to the challenge of resurrecting a legendary franchise, say his friends and associates – but there's no question that his longstanding ties to Los Angeles and his lure for this place, a symbiotic relationship that can be attributed to his adolescence.
"His home will always be in Ohio," said Mark Olivier, one of his former youth coaches, in an interview. "But it's a new stage in his life for him."
James' first exhibition in Southern California – and especially in Southern California – took place in eighth grade. His summer league team, the Northeast Ohio Shooting Stars, flew a 20-hour minibus ride to Orlando, Florida for a national tournament. In the championship game, the Shooting Stars came up against a juggernaut: the Southern California All-Stars, who had several flashy uniforms and the fanfaronnerie that suited them. James, who later wrote in a memoir that he thought Californian players were ridiculously arrogant, missed a 3 pointer indicator and his team was lost.
The game stayed with James, who described his feelings in "LeBron's Dream Team: How Four Friends and I Bring Back a Title at Home," which he wrote with Buzz Bissinger.
"Since then I've been to Southern California many times," James wrote. "It's a cool and beautiful place, filled with riches, glamor and hidden places hidden in the pockets of the Hollywood Hills. But at that time and there, I hated Southern California.
A year later, James made his first trip to California, where he participated in a tournament in Berkeley for the Oakland Soldiers, an elite program of the Amateur Athletic Union. The story of how he came to play for them is complicated – many things with James are complicated – but a friend of one of the founders of Soldiers had seen James play Akron.
James ended up making at least two trips to play with the soldiers, including one for a tournament at the State University of California, Dominguez Hills, just outside Los Angeles. The secret was unveiled: James was the best high school player in the country.
"He went crazy in this tournament," said Olivier, former president of the soldiers. "You could see that the game was really easy for him."
Olivier said he hoped to take his players to Disneyland – they talked about it all the time, he said – but their schedule was busy and the traffic unbearable. So they settled for a water balloon battle at their hotel. Olivier left with the impression that James had enjoyed his stay in California.
"The time it's doing," said Olivier. "The weather, the weather, we have no seasons here, how can you not like that?"
By the time James was in high school, St. Vincent-St. Mary was playing a national program – and was charging a $ 15,000 appearance fee. Dinos Trigonis, a talent evaluator from the Los Angeles area who helped organize high-level games in high school, felt the award was worth it to draw the team to Los Angeles for to face Mater Dei.
Trigonis knew that several Mater Dei players had played for the Southern California All-Stars, the team that had defeated James in eighth grade. Trigonis therefore presented the profitability factor in St. Vincent-St. Mary and team coach Dru Joyce II.
"They never forgot it," said Trigonis. "In their minds, it was almost like a revenge."
The day before the match, a press conference was held at Lawry's, a steakhouse in Beverly Hills. James and his teammates wore matching tracksuits. Yet, despite their refined appearance, they were still teenagers of Akron. McGee is reminded not to be impressed by the concept of prime rib.
"I'm talking about a big stupid and stupid steak," he said. "I remember that Coach Dru had said:" Yo, it's a $ 50 plate! "But all the seniors were well placed, and we looked at each other. as if, "Dude, we do not want that." Burger King or something like that.
Nevertheless, James was irrevocably close to the prestige of big sports. At his press conference, he was asked about his diamond earrings.
"They cost 25 cents each with a rubber machine," he said.
Throughout the weekend, James seemed to alternate play and petulance. At that time, he was entrenched in the spotlight, the first alleged choice in the series N.B.A. project with his own Sports Illustrated cover. It suited celebrity and there was no turning back.
At the time, Joyce was worried that all the attention was too much, too soon and that James was an easy prey for evil forces that did not have the best intentions. After all, James was only a teenager. But it was worth millions.
On the day of the match, James dressed in front of Jason Kapono's then UCLA movie star, before appearing in front of an audience of television actors, agents and basketball company executives. who were trying to sign it. "I remember seeing Urkel on the sidelines," McGee said, referring to a "Family Matters" character.
The game, broadcast by ESPN2, seemed almost incidental. James had 21 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists and 7 turnovers in a 64-58 win. The trip, however, left an impression.
"Come on now," said McGee. "It was the end of the winter at home, in Ohio, and we were lucky enough to go to California. Dude, we were in love. "
A few months after the victory over Mater Dei and a few months before the Cleveland Cavaliers, he was the NBA's first choice of 2003. In the repechage, James returned to Los Angeles with a group of friends for a playoff game between the Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs.
James, who was solicited by potential sponsors, was about to sign a seven-year contract with Nike worth over $ 90 million, one of the first partnerships demonstrating his business acumen .
Travis, who came during the trip – "The Lakers were knocked out," he said – recalled that they had stayed in the same hotel as the Spurs, which was a thrill because Tim Duncan was one of his favorite players.
Travis, McGee and James keep in touch via group messages with some of Akron's friends. Travis, who plays professional basketball in the Philippines, said he heard rumors during the winter that James could go to the Lakers, which was not a complete surprise.
As much James has benefited from his fame and as much as he enjoys it – He appeared on stage with Drake during a recent concert at Staples Center – there are times when he craves privacy, Travis said.
"For a famous guy, L.A. is one of the best places to be because there are so many other famous people," said Travis. "When he goes into a restaurant and there are 10 other famous people, everyone will be like," Oh, that 's LeBron, "and they continue their day because" there' s nothing like that. they are used to."
He added, "That's pretty much a bit of normality, which he has not had since he was 16 years old."
At the same time, James has many commercial interests based in Los Angeles, including his production company (SpringHill Entertainment) and a digital platform (Uninterrupted). His companies have projects in development with networks such as HBO, Starz, Showtime and Netflix. He also plans to exercise his acting skills at the next restart of "Space Jam".
Yet James has always fought the perception that he had moved here because of Hollywood. It is worth noting that he said that he planned to spend his summers in the Akron area, where he still has a home.
"My decision was solely based on my family and the Lakers," said James. "As for my businesses, these things were taken care of well before I came here to be part of the Laker franchise."
So, James has another full season ahead of him, with the dream of raising a new team to known heights. He lives with his family in the Brentwood neighborhood, not far from the beach where, in a way, his last trip began a long time ago.
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