In his Senior year of High School (was it two or three years ago--bad memory), ESPN was constantly talking about a "Lebron James" and even calling him "King James." I never had the opportunity to see him play in high school (I was always watching something else and didn't believe that he could be as good as ESPN was hyping him up to be) even though his games, if I remember, were being shown on ESPN. I had the pre-conceived bias that he could not possibly be anywhere near as good as the critics thought he was -as a potential NBA star. I decided to take a look for myself and watched his first game (on television) in the NBA. It only took one game to convince me that he was the 'real deal,' the complete package offensively and defensively. What amazed me the most was that for an 18-year old, his body was a big and strong and athletic as anyone at any age who's ever played in the NBA. I realized from his first game, also, that he already had a good outside shot, his confidence was already as good as most veterans in the league, and he was very athletic and had an array of moves when in transition or driving to the basket. So far, he's proven that his first NBA game was no beginner's luck and he's combined elements of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. He rarely seems reluctant to share the ball (sometimes ESPN criticizes him for sharing it too much) and he's a threat to score from the outside and inside. He isn't nearly as graceful as Jordan in the paint, but he has as much athletic ability as Jordan or anyone else who's ever played. On the downside, he shows trends of being somewhat of a streak shooter sometimes (he's had a lot of bad shooting games this year), but otherwise, so far in his very short career, he's had the maturity and skills of some of the best players who have ever played and is considered one of the best current NBA players -alongside the likes of Shaq, Kobe, Garnett, and Dwayne Wade. Let's see if he keeps it up and gets even better.