LeBron James has returned to Cleveland. Don’t know if you heard that, it made a little bit of news this summer. The prodigal son story of LeBron returning to northeast Ohio, bringing with him title aspirations and Kevin Love, has played well everywhere but Miami.
LeBron sat down for a long interview on “CNN’s Unguarded with Rachel Nichols” and we brought you some of the highlights already, specifically James talking about his weight loss this summer. The full interview aired Friday night and there was a lot more to it.
Among the topics covered was former Cavaliers and now Hawks GM Danny Ferry, who is on an indefinite leave of absence from the team after saying some bigoted things about free agent Luol Deng.
LEBRON: Danny was the GM when I was there in Cleveland. And I never got that sense about him. But that doesn’t mean, you know, what he said about Luol Deng absolutely wrong. It was very insensitive. And there’s no room for that in our sport. I mean, we all know that, obviously. There’s not no room for that in our league, or any league, or not even a league. There’s not room for that in society.
The other interesting discussion was LeBron on fatherhood. His fourth-grade son LeBron James Jr. is already drawing some attention for his basketball skills (if you’re not aware how young players start to get tracked, it’s disturbing). LeBron may be better suited than anyone on the planet to guide someone through the challenges of being a young basketball star, but even he is not sure exactly how to do that.
LEBRON; That’s the tough part. As you said, Rachel, how do I guide him? There is no -- you can go to Borders or, you know, and find books on parenting. There is no booklet where no one can tell you on how to raise your kids. And you know, every single day is always challenging. And for my kids even more challenging, because their dad is famous.
But I feel like the morals and the goals and the things that I teach them I just want to lay the path for them and let them, at the end of the day, make their own decisions, you know. And hopefully, the -- the way that I’ve been teaching them will, when they get to a fork in the road, they will know what’s right, and not go left.
Actually LeBron, you can go to Borders and buy a book on parenting, they have a whole section of them, but none of them really are that much help, especially once you get past age three. Every situation is different, is unique, and there are no easy answers. LeBron is right that his situation presents different challenges than my kids face, but he’s got the only answer I’ve ever found — be the best dad and role model you can. Show them, don’t tell them. Then hope.
LeBron also was asked about what’s ahead.
NICHOLS: Well, with everything you’ve got ahead of yourself -- basketball, new baby on the way, your getting to raise your family in Ohio -- is there a word or two that comes to mind as you think about what’s ahead?
LEBRON: Wow, I mean, that’s a great question. One word that I can describe what is a head, is faith. I have faith in myself, faith in my family, faith in my community and Northeast Ohio, the whole state of Ohio. I owe a huge responsibility to myself to understand that me playing the game of basketball is much bigger than me dribbling, or dunking, or making a gambling (ph) shot. So the whole word faith is the No. 1 thing I can kind of use for the very near future.