Lebron coming out of High School was the next big for the NBA. He’s changed the league with his dedication to his craft, his personality and his ability to adapt to whatever comes his way. Lebron is someone everyone wants on their team, but it was a select few that get to call him a teammate and one of those companies is Nike.
Nike is use to having heavy hitters on their rosters, and surely Lebron saw mutual interest in joining their team. But it wasnt just Nike going after Lebron, Reebok and Adidas wanted him too. During a video for Uninterrupted, Lebron told a story about how Reebok came at him hard and gave him $10M reasons why he needed to choose them over everyone else.
“I was lost for words at the beginning,” James says. “Shit, we flew in—I flew in from Akron, Ohio, from the projects. Our rent is like $17 a month, and now I’m looking at a $10 million check.” He underlines how surreal the experience was by mentioning how he went back to class at his high school the next day.
That was in 2003… in 2015, Lebron signed a lifetime contract with Nike. He’s never leaving.
