LeBron James shocked the sports world last Friday when he revealed that he would be returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers via an essay on Sports Illustrated. While there were plenty of murmurs leading up to the announcement, nobody really knew for sure King James would be coming home. Well, actually, maybe one person knew all long.
Vada Manager, a former senior director of global issues management at Nike, called it four years ago.
“LeBron is a young man who bypassed college and has spent his entire life in Ohio,” Manager wrote in a 2010 op-ed for Ebony.com.
“While this isn't quite the equivalent of leaving home for university frat parties, this new team chemistry could unleash a Jordan-esque competitive output inside him. Many of us can relate to leaving the familiarity of home environs as a motivating factor in our own personal growth: Let LeBron do the same and Cleveland may yet still reap a future championship and bigger economic windfall with their native son.”
In James' essay, he likens his four-year experience with the Heat to that of someone going away for college—the exact point Manager made in 2010. While everyone's been scrambling for sources, it seems like the information was there this whole time.
