LeBron James, from nothing to King

It could be said that it all started when he achieved his first dunk, at the age of 13 in a high school match between students and teachers.

But in truth the majestic career of LeBron James, who is about to become the leading regular-season scorer in NBA history (35 points shy of matching Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record), began on the same day. in which he was born

It was on December 30, 1984 in Akron, Ohio, a place where parents taught their children to hide when they saw a police car.

In her case, only his mother, 16-year-old Gloria, accompanied him, since her father, Anthony, had disappeared when he learned of the adolescent's pregnancy.

"Every day I woke up knowing that I had to fight," LeBron recalls today, from the height of basketball, about that childhood that made him a survivor.

“As a child I saw everything, drugs, homicides... he was crazy.

I spent many scary nights, hearing sirens and police shots.”

He saved him the love of his mother, who chained up to three jobs a day to bring him a plate of food, and sports, first American football and then basketball.

The rest is legend.

In

(Editorial Córner), the journalist Davide Chinellato, an NBA specialist at La Gazzetta dello Sport, recounts how that boy who seemed doomed to be part of a gang and find his bones in jail has ended up becoming the winner of four rings in the best basketball league in the world and a universal figure not only for his incredible achievements before the basket, still today at the age of 38, but also for his willingness to help those who have less, especially in that city 50 kilometers from Cleveland where he grew up.

From dodging a tragic fate to changing his life when he went to live with the family of his first coach, to rubbing shoulders today with the myths (Jordan, Kobe) in the debate about who is the best basketball player of all time.

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