You have to give Lee Jenkins credit. When LeBron James sat down with Oprah for the interview that aired on “Oprah’s Next Chapter” last Sunday he revealed that after his Miami Heat were ousted from last year’s NBA Finals by the Dallas Mavericks he locked himself in his bedroom for two weeks. But this wasn’t news to readers of Sports Illustrated. Jenkins who is the senior writer for the magazine already exposed this in the April 30 issue and it created quite a buzz back then. Oprah spoke with LeBron about the aftermath of the loss and how he survived being in such a “dark place.” LeBron responded to her by discussing how his depression resulted in him growing a beard that closely resembled that of Tom Hanks in “Castaway.” If you look back at the article in SI, LeBron said the exact same story to Jenkins.
After the Heat won the NBA championship in June, Jenkins was able to speak with LeBron again to discuss how it felt for him to finally reach the mountaintop. This resulted in another Sports Illustrated cover for King James. I caught up with Jenkins to discuss how he was able to get such great access to LeBron and what he was able to learn from each encounter with the Miami Heat’s MVP.
Lee, I was actually trying to speak to you about the first LeBron cover from April but you also have another one out now.
Yeah, I actually wrote on him again this week. I saw him on Saturday in Miami again. I didn’t get as much time with him but I got some pretty decent time.
Was it automatic that if they won the championship you would get access to LeBron again?
No, I had to pitch it again. The night they won it I sort of walked with him a little bit. He has people around him that handle his media stuff and he has personal people. I think he felt like he was treated fairly with the first story and that helped. He said he read it and that was kind of cool.
So you go through the Miami Heat or his people? How does the pitch take place?
LeBron is with Fenway Sports Group. I sent a pitch and told them what sort of story I wanted to do. The pitch was about me focusing on the season he was having which was an incredible season. At the time he was having a historically good season but it went down a touch in the second half. But I knew he would probably win MVP. I thought it might set the stage for a championship run. The real impotence of the story is that so much of the stories on him feel observational and not much comes from the source. I sort of wanted to hear from him and let his voice go on what it’s like to be LeBron James. It is interesting. It’s probably not as interesting to people who are with Bill Clinton or a big time celebrity like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. But as big as sports are there aren’t that many true celebrities in sports. LeBron is one of those few who lives the life of a real celebrity. I think that at times that it is tricky for him and challenging. I wanted to let him talk about that than talking to coaches about what they think that’s like. That’s the hard part of the business. So many times you are getting it from a secondary source than the person who is experiencing it.
How much time did you get with LeBron?
For the first piece, I got him on a Saturday night at a hotel and talked to him for 50 minutes. Then I saw him the next day at the Knicks game and he came over for a second. Then after the Nets game the following day on Monday he came over after that and I talked to him for a couple of minutes. When I do a magazine piece I’m hopeful for a 45 minute sit-down. If I can get that I’m pretty happy.
You were also able to get a candid Shane Battier and you were able to get time with his coach Erik Spoelstra. Was that by accident?
What happens is that you get that locker room pass. Shane Battier is like the best guy to deal with in sports. He is so accommodating and just so smart. You can’t write it any better than he says it. I asked the Heat for a couple of minutes with coach Spoelstra before the Nets game. I had Shane for ten minutes and Spoelstra for seven minutes.
Were you able to get Dwyane Wade or did you not want to add him to the piece?
I got Dwyane for a second after that Nets game. Whenever you are doing these things I don’t like to ask for a lot more than I am going to use. I wouldn’t ask for 20 minutes for Dwyane Wade for a story about LeBron. That’s unfair.
You spoke in your piece about how LeBron doesn’t read that much but in the playoffs he appeared to be an avid reader with footage of him reading ‘Decoded’ and the ‘The Hunger Games’ in the locker room.
I wrote about that in the latest piece. He turned through six or seven books in the playoffs. He’s got a lot more into it. He is the quintessential product of the information age in that he is so plugged in. He’s got the phone and the Twitter. He is immersed in sports on TV. Guys like Kobe really insulate themselves. When they say they don’t really follow stuff they really don’t. In the last two years when LeBron has been critiqued heavily I have a feeling he heard all of that. So in the playoffs he said he completely unplugged. He turned his phone off and for him that’s major but maybe for a Kevin Garnett-type that would be typical or not a big deal.
I found it interesting that Hakeem Olajuwon helped LeBron with his post moves and also did the same for Kobe. He’s helped great players become even greater.
It’s funny that you mention that because in this piece I talk about that again. Every two weeks of the playoffs LeBron was calling Hakeem who lives in Amman Jordan during the offseason. If you watched the playoffs LeBron was in the post a ton starting with the Pacers series and he kind of tweaked their offense. So Hakeem became a voice in his ear throughout the playoffs.
Now I know this sounds strange but LeBron has Alonzo Mourning at his disposal. He has a post-legend that he can use in Miami. Why not use him?
That’s an interesting point. I never asked him that. When I think back on Mourning it’s the guy who gets deep post position and it was more of power game. The sophistication of Hakeem’s moves may be something that translates more to a skill player like Kobe or LeBron. When these guys think about post moves they think about Hakeem.
Was there something that you left out or forgot to ask LeBron?
Yes, there is always something. When I was walking out I remembered that I didn’t ask him how much harder was it than what you expected. I don’t like making points about guys unless they address it themselves. I don’t like projecting in their heads that much. I really wanted to explore how he went to Miami to make his life easier and what he couldn’t have expected is that he made his life especially away from the court harder. I wanted him to talk about that a little bit and to see if he would admit it’s been harder than I thought it would be which is something Wade said right after they won the title the other night. But it’s something I forgot. When I interviewed LeBron I had two tape recorders which I never do but my worst nightmare was the battery running out.
In your first piece you talked about how LeBron gave Jay-Z’s nephew sneakers after the Nets game. It was interesting to see that they have a good relationship even though many of us expected that it would change after LeBron didn’t sign with the Nets. He still mentioned Jay-Z in the first piece as someone he truly admires.
I think they are really tight. Another thing I didn’t write is that LeBron said he never had a mentor in the NBA like an older player he looked up to. If you know LeBron now he serves that role for this generation. But Jay-Z is the one he leans on the most. I don’t know if there was any lingering bitterness from Jay-Z’s side when he didn’t sign with New Jersey. But I have a feeling he understood. Early on we knew the Nets were an underdog in that pursuit.
In the two weeks that LeBron took off and locked himself up, do we know who he communicated with? Were people concerned?
He’s got a lot of people around him. His mom and fiancée were in the house. He has a personal trainer who is always around. Then he’s got Maverick who was around as well as in his ear. He’s got this close group of friends from Akron who now work on his business side. He keeps these guys from home close to home.
I expected Maverick Carter and his business team to be a part of this story as well but they weren’t.
I did get a chance to talk to him this past week. I think what happened with LeBron is there was a sense that he was becoming too corporate and too much into his status as a global icon and not as much about basketball. I wanted to do a story more about basketball, about the past year and a half and how he’s grown since the loss to Dallas. If you look at the numbers they showed that he was a better player than he was a year ago. He improved. When you see that statistical improvement it always begs to question, ‘What happened? What did he do?’
I also found interesting that LeBron did a silent protest for Trayvon Martin and encouraged his teammates to be a part of that. We only thought that Amare Stoudemire was the only one taking such a public stance.
I can’t take credit for that one. That got a fair amount of coverage and LeBron is one of those guys who grew up in the Jordan mold of ‘Republicans buy shoes too.’ You didn’t want to take a political stance. I don’t think it was a controversial stance to take but for LeBron it probably represented an entrée into maybe being more involved in the future.
Please give us a visual of your last interview with LeBron after he won the championship.
Our magazine comes out Wednesday. The finals ended Thursday so it looked so played out to have a story about the game so I hung around Miami for a few days and tried to get him one more time. So I got him at the Ritz at Coconut Grove on Saturday night and my deadline was Sunday afternoon. I got him for 30 minutes and it was cool. It was outside on this terrace. It’s so funny and LeBron actually mentioned this on Letterman last night. This couple was getting married and it was this cool Jewish wedding. We are talking on the terrace and right inside the couple is getting married. And the bride sees LeBron and so she’s knocking on the window and wants a picture with him and then we went back inside and then he took the picture with the husband and the wife. It was a cool moment. They were both going through this rite of passage. They were both getting rings.