First published 2015
The Cleveland Cavaliers win the 2003 NBA draft lottery and select LeBron James, an eighteen-year-old basketball prodigy from nearby Akron. The franchise has never reached the NBA Finals. The city has not celebrated a major sports championship in four decades. Everyone suddenly has stakes in James's success. The billionaire owner wants profits. Teammates want championship rings. The NBA needs its next marketing superstar. The shoe company has signed a record endorsement contract. Even popcorn vendors and restaurant servers depend on the team's fortunes. Award-winning journalists Terry Pluto and Brian Windhorst chronicle how a struggling franchise and a Rust Belt city pinned their hopes on one teenager. The book reveals the converging pressures that transformed James into a young superstar carrying the weight of an entire organization and community on his shoulders.
Genres: business, sports, biography-memoir, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: rags-to-riches, underdog
Setting: Cleveland, Akron
Period: 2003
200 pages · Paperback · Gray & Company, Publishers