ESPN.com · 4 days ago
'Might be better than Kobe': Inside LeBron's first game in Philly -- more than two decades ago
THE FAX LAID out a grandiose plan.
Jeremy Treatman, a former high school assistant coach in the Philadelphia suburbs who was running a burgeoning company that staged big-time basketball events between the game's future stars, had just sent a message to Dru Joyce II, the new coach at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, the school famously led by one of the most highly touted prep prospects in the history of the sport.
It was the summer of 2002.
Six months after a then 17-year-old LeBron James had appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated accompanied by the headline, "The Chosen One," Treatman was pitching Joyce on choosing him to build James' hype even more.