LeBron James summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see LeBron James.

LeBron James, (born Dec. 30, 1984, Akron, Ohio, U.S.), U.S. basketball player. A basketball prodigy, he was the consensus national high-school player of the year in 2003. He then was selected first overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2003 NBA draft. James quickly established himself as one of the league’s dominant players. He was named Rookie of the Year in 2004 and later won multiple Most Valuable Player awards (2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013). After the 2009–10 season he signed with the Miami Heat, and he helped the franchise win championships in 2012 and 2013. He returned to the Cavaliers in 2014 and guided the team to its first NBA title in 2016. Two years later he joined the Los Angeles Lakers and helped them capture the championship in 2020. In 2023 he replaced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. James also was a member of the U.S. Olympic basketball teams that won the bronze medal in 2004 and gold medals in 2008 and 2012.

Olympic Games Summary

Olympic Games, athletic festival that originated in ancient Greece and was revived in the late 19th century. Before the 1970s the Games were officially limited to competitors with amateur status, but in the 1980s many events were opened to professional athletes. Currently, the Games are open to

Michael Jordan playing for the Dream Team

basketball Summary

Basketball, game played between two teams of five players each on a rectangular court, usually indoors. Each team tries to score by tossing the ball through the opponent’s goal, an elevated horizontal hoop and net called a basket. (Read James Naismith’s 1929 Britannica essay on his invention of

film Summary

Film, series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid succession onto a screen by means of light. Because of the optical phenomenon known as persistence of vision, this gives the illusion of actual, smooth, and continuous movement. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film