It was a Monday morning in late March. Normally, LeBron James would have been in homeroom at St. Vincent, dressed in school clothes, with a backpack containing books strapped over his shoulders. Instead, he was in a locker room at a rec center in the suburbs of Cleveland, putting on his work clothes. Moments later he stepped onto the court for a practice session one day prior to the McDonald’s All-American high school basketball game.
Scouts from all twenty-nine NBA teams were on hand for the workout. Since none of the other all-Americans had yet entered the gym, all eyes were on LeBron in his red McDonald’s jersey. His six-eight, 240-pound frame was thick with muscle through the shoulders, chest, and thighs. His chiseled figure didn’t appear to have an ounce of body fat. It was hard not to gawk at his supernatural athleticism. With an ethereal forty-four-inch vertical leap, the top of LeBron’s head was above the rim when he dunked. At eighteen, he could already jump higher than every player in the NBA. When the other high school all-Americans began trickling onto the court, the contrast between LeBron and them was stark. They were all pro prospects, tall and skilled. But LeBron was far more physically imposing, a man among boys. The scouts were also attuned to the more subtle distinctions, noting that LeBron had a habit of being the first person on the court for practice and the last one to leave. The rare combination of superior skill and indomitable drive was a priceless commodity in the commerce of professional sports.
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Perhaps the most difficult thing for a scout to ascertain was what was going on inside a prospective player’s head. At a time when some of the McDonald’s all-Americans were still figuring out which college to play for in the fall, LeBron had much weightier matters on his mind. For a long time, he’d viewed it as his responsibility to provide a comfortable home, a car, and lifetime financial security for his mother. The time had come for him to formally notify the NBA in writing that he was entering the draft, where he was a lock to be the number one overall pick. He also had to choose between the three shoe companies vying for his services, a decision that would affect his net worth much more than which NBA franchise he ended up joining. But before dealing with the NBA or the corporations that were already lining up to offer him lucrative endorsement deals, LeBron had to choose a sports agent to help him navigate his next moves. It was a lot to contemplate for a high school senior.
Most NBA insiders figured that LeBron would sign with someone like Arn Tellem, who was generally regarded as one of the most powerful agents in the league. Tellem controlled more than 15 percent of the league’s players, including many of the game’s biggest stars. He was also close to Sonny Vaccaro—the former Nike executive, now at Adidas, who signed Michael Jordan to his first sneaker deal—who thought he’d be a good fit for LeBron. Another leading candidate was Leon Rose, who was tight with NBA power broker William Wesley. Although LeBron respected both Vaccaro and Wesley, neither of them tried to influence his thinking on agents.
Ultimately, LeBron went in a different direction. In the spring, he quietly settled on forty-two-year-old Aaron Goodwin as his agent. Goodwin stepped into an unprecedented situation—LeBron was positioned to become one of the richest athletes in the world even before playing his first NBA game. Agents take a commission on every endorsement deal they close. With the negotiations with Nike, Reebok, and Adidas headed for uncharted territory, Goodwin turned to attorney Fred Schreyer to help him navigate the offers. It was a shrewd move on Goodwin’s part. Schreyer was the general counsel and chief financial officer for the Professional Bowlers Association. But prior to joining the PBA, Schreyer had been a senior executive at Nike, where he had handled the company’s biggest shoe contracts with athletes. No one was more versed in dealing with Nike than Schreyer. And Schreyer would be invaluable in scrutinizing the competing offers from Adidas and Reebok.
John W. McDonough//Getty ImagesWith an ethereal forty-four-inch vertical leap, the top of LeBron’s head was above the rim when he dunked. At eighteen, he could already jump higher than every player in the NBA.
At the end of April, LeBron stood at a podium in the St. V gymnasium and declared that he was forgoing college and entering the NBA Draft. Looking out at his friends, fellow students, and more than fifty journalists from around the country, he paused, remembering that time in middle school when he had written “NBA” three times on a three-by-five card after his teacher assigned him to list three careers that interested him. “It’s been a longtime goal,” LeBron told the audience. “And I’m happy it’s finally coming true.”
Days later, LeBron stepped into the boardroom at Reebok’s headquarters outside Boston. Accompanied by his agent and his lawyer, LeBron sat next to his mother, Gloria, at the longest table he’d ever seen. Maverick Carter, one of LeBron's closest friends, took a seat at the table, too.
Reebok CEO Paul Fireman welcomed everyone and made it clear to LeBron from the outset that his company was prepared to treat him as the most important athlete in Reebok’s history. It was a not-so-subtle way of distinguishing Reebok from Nike, where LeBron would be in a crowded field of superstar athletes.
Todd Krinsky, an executive over Reebok’s clothing and shoe division, outlined the company’s new initiative to blend music and sports in hopes of appealing to hipper, younger consumers. Reebok had just signed Jay-Z to an endorsement deal that included his own signature sneaker, the S. Carter. Reebok was also working on a deal with Pharrell Williams. And Reebok put LeBron in the same category as these entertainers. LeBron was a next-generation athlete with tremendous crossover appeal.
After the presentation, Reebok put its offer on the table: $100 million over ten years.
The room fell silent.
LeBron was astounded. Sonny Vaccaro had told him he was worth a hundred million. But that number had always felt more magical than literal.
Gloria’s eyes welled up.
Aaron Goodwin tried to maintain his composure. He hadn’t been expecting a nine-figure offer from Reebok.
Neither had Fred Schreyer, who remembered when Tiger Woods had turned pro, in 1996, and Nike signed him to a five-year endorsement deal worth $40 million. It was the most lucrative shoe deal ever offered to an amateur athlete. Reebok’s offer to LeBron blew the Tiger deal away.
Looking to close, Paul Fireman pulled out a pen and reached for a check.
LeBron had no idea what Fireman was doing at the other end of the table.
Fireman signed the lower right-hand corner and slid the check across the table.
Goodwin picked it up and noted the amount: $10 million, made pay- able to LeBron James.
Goodwin showed it to LeBron and Gloria. Gloria cried.
LeBron stared at all those zeros.
The check in LeBron's hand offered an escape from all of that. It was an instant ticket to a new life. All he had to do was say yes.Fireman’s proposition to LeBron was simple—sign with Reebok now and he’d walk out the door with a $10 million advance.
Sweating, Maverick stood and undid the top buttons on his shirt. Holy shit, he thought. This shit is real.
Goodwin and Schreyer needed a moment to confer with their client.
Fireman gave them the room. He and Krinsky stepped out, and the door clicked shut behind them.
Gloria was vocal. She didn’t see what there was to confer about. Reebok’s offer surpassed everyone’s expectations. LeBron could walk out the door an instant millionaire ten times over.
LeBron was at a loss for words. He’d just flown in from Akron. He lived in the projects. Their subsidized rent was around $22 a month. His mother was unemployed and had to pay for groceries with food stamps. The check in his hand offered an escape from all of that. It was an instant ticket to a new life. All he had to do was say yes.
Gloria was ready to walk out with the check.
Goodwin wanted everyone to take a beat. Reebok’s offer was off the charts. And Fireman had made a bold move by putting $10 million on the table. But this was a preemptive bid, one that was intended to preclude LeBron from talking to Adidas and Nike. Goodwin reminded LeBron that the game plan was to meet with all three companies before deciding.
Schreyer agreed. Although it was nerve-racking to turn down $100 million, he felt that the prudent move was to wait and see what Adidas and Nike had to offer.
Holding the check, LeBron felt torn.
Fireman and Krinsky reentered the room and took their seats. Stoic, LeBron pushed the check back to Fireman.
Fireman and his team were disappointed. But they couldn’t help being impressed. Todd Krinsky looked on in amazement as LeBron left Reebok’s headquarters that evening. He’s a man already, Krinsky thought. He knows what’s about to come to him.
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On his way to homeroom the following morning, LeBron thought: Holy shit! I can’t believe I left that on the table.
He didn’t dwell on the thought very long. It was a Friday and LeBron’s classmates were gearing up for senior prom that weekend. But LeBron had other plans. As soon as school let out, he hustled off to an airfield, where a private jet awaited. The plane had been chartered by Sonny Vaccaro to whisk LeBron to Los Angeles for the pitch meeting with Adidas. There were enough seats on the luxury aircraft for LeBron’s friends and advisors. Everyone climbed aboard.
Sonny had long admired the way LeBron always tried to include his high school teammates in everything he did. At LeBron’s request, Sonny had secured courtside seats for them to take in that night’s playoff game between the Spurs and the Lakers. A limousine picked up LeBron and his friends at LAX and delivered them to the Staples Center. Wearing a fake diamond in each ear, a backward Lakers cap, and an unzipped letterman jacket over a white T-shirt, LeBron entered the arena as if he were stepping into a future home. Hollywood moguls, pop stars, actors, and athletes occupied the seats closest to the court. The Laker Girls danced. Music pulsed. And Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal were trying to lead the Lakers to a fourth consecutive NBA championship. But the Spurs, led by David Robinson and Tim Duncan, stood in the way. The atmosphere was alluring.
Partway through the second quarter, Shaq was whistled for his second foul. Dressed in black and wearing Ray-Bans, Jack Nicholson rose from his courtside seat and tore into the referees. With his new movie, Anger Management, atop the box office charts, Nicholson shouted and pointed his finger as if he were in character, revving up the crowd. When the referees told him to sit down, Nicholson got louder. “This is the NBA!” he barked. “You can’t tell me to sit down.”
Egged on by Nicholson’s defiance, fans rose to their feet, cheering him and booing the referees. The tension in the building prompted the officials to consult with security about having the Oscar winner removed from the arena for stepping onto the court. But security advised against it, saying the move might start a riot. Instead, the officials warned Nicholson that he better not set foot on the court again.
“They can’t run me out of here,” Nicholson sneered. “They’re not going to get me out of here. I can stand here if I want to. I pay good money for my ticket.”
LeBron took it all in as Nicholson’s outburst ignited the crowd and Kobe led the Lakers on a run. It was the kind of moment that LeBron longed to star in—the best player in the NBA, competing in front of world-famous entertainers on a grand stage, the crowd going wild. It was a reminder of what LeBron had already figured out—that at its core, a professional sport was much more than a game; it was show business.
Suddenly, a producer from TNT approached LeBron. Courtside reporter Craig Sager wanted to interview him.
LeBron obliged. Stepping into the glow of the white light and facing the camera, LeBron felt the eyes of Lakers fans settling on him.
“With me, perhaps the most highly acclaimed player to ever participate in high school basketball,” Sager said. “LeBron James, first of all con- gratulations on an outstanding career and a national championship. How difficult was it to handle all the attention and publicity?”
“I think for any normal person it would be pretty hard,” LeBron said. “You know, from growing up and having so much adversity in my life, I think it was pretty easy. And with a couple of my teammates and coaches, it made it a lot easier.”
“You’ll be in the draft. But you don’t know who you’ll be playing for.
Who would you like to play for?”
“Man, this is my long-term goal. I’ll play for anybody.”
Kevork Djansezian//Getty ImagesYears before he would put on a Lakers uniform, a young LeBron James watched Jack Nicholson flip shit in the Staples Center.
Back in Akron, St. V students and teachers who were watching the game couldn’t get over the fact that LeBron was on live television in Los Angeles. That afternoon, he’d been at school. In a post-9/11 world, it wasn’t possible to get from Akron to Los Angeles that fast on commercial flights.
But LeBron was already accustomed to the kind of high-speed travel normally reserved for corporate titans. He’d also become pretty deft at doing live interviews.
“Why are you here tonight?” Sager asked LeBron.
It was a loaded question, one that required LeBron to parse his words. “I’m here to watch Kobe and Shaq,” he said. “Shaq came to my game two years ago and I’m here to watch them try to get a victory.”
Everything LeBron said was true. Yet he had cleverly avoided any mention of Adidas as the impetus for his trip to LA and his presence at the game.
Staring at his television, Sonny Vaccaro nodded. Smart kid, he thought. As LeBron returned to his seat, Kobe drove the lane and put up an acrobatic shot. But TNT announcers Mike Fratello and Marv Albert were focused on LeBron.
“That young man, Marv, that Craig just talked to,” Fratello said, “really has handled himself extremely well under the pressures this year that he was put under.”
LeBron awoke to bright sunshine, warm air, and a view of the water. Sonny had put him and Gloria up in a beachfront hotel in Santa Monica. LeBron recognized that Sonny always went out of his way to treat Gloria like a VIP. LeBron was also aware that Sonny had publicly defended Gloria when journalists had portrayed her as money hungry.
Most of the stories that had been critical of Gloria were written by journalists who had no firsthand experience with poverty. These sportswriters were predominantly white men with no reference point for what it was like to raise a child on your own as a sixteen-year-old Black girl. Sonny didn’t know what that was like, either. But he’d gotten to know Gloria well enough to see a side of her that the media overlooked. “She could’ve taken hundreds of thousands from various people,” Sonny told the Akron Beacon Journal in the spring of 2003. “There’s nobody from the agents to the financial managers to would-be investors that would not have fronted them whatever they wanted or needed. Gloria didn’t ask for or take anything.”
The best chance that Adidas had in landing LeBron rested in the relationship Sonny had established with him and Gloria.
Around noon, LeBron and Gloria got into a limo that delivered them to an opulent mansion in Malibu. It belonged to a mover and shaker in the music industry. Sonny had rented the place for the weekend. And he had it staged for the occasion. Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” played in the background when Sonny opened the door and greeted LeBron and Gloria.
“C’mon,” Sonny said. “Check out the view of the ocean.”
“What the fuck are you doing?”LeBron and Gloria walked across the marble floors, past a spread of catered food and an endless array of beverages on ice, toward a spacious room with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a swimming pool and provided a panoramic view of the Pacific. It was like seeing the future. The vibe of the Adidas pitch felt much more relaxed than the Reebok meeting had. Flanked by Gloria and Goodwin, LeBron sat on a couch that faced the water. The Adidas team sat opposite him. A long glass coffee table was between the two sides.
Vaccaro turned it over to his associate David Bond, who presented the branding plan, the marketing plan, and the product plan. Eventually, the conversation shifted to money. An attorney for Adidas entered the room with a file in his hand. He removed a contract for Goodwin to review. It contained a lot more legalese than the Reebok offer had.
Adidas appeared to be offering LeBron $100 million over seven years. But a closer inspection of the fine print revealed that a lot of the money was tied up in royalties and contingent on LeBron’s hitting various bench- marks, such as playing in a certain number of games and scoring a certain number of points. The amount of guaranteed money was closer to $70 million, which was a far cry from what Sonny had led LeBron and Gloria to believe was coming.
Goodwin looked at Sonny and pointed to the contingencies provision in the offer. “This isn’t what we talked about,” Goodwin told him.
Sonny’s jaw dropped as he looked at the language. He stood and motioned for the Adidas lawyer and Bond to follow him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sonny said to the attorney.
In a heated exchange, Sonny and Bond learned that a last-minute decision had been made at corporate headquarters in Germany to lower Adidas’ risk by putting performance-based provisions in the contract.
Bond couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They had agreed ahead of time to offer LeBron $100 million guaranteed.
But the CEO of Adidas was not as certain as Sonny and Bond that committing $100 million to an eighteen-year-old who had yet to play against NBA competition was a wise move, so the offer was changed.
It was a fateful decision that would alter the company’s history. Furious, Sonny knew what this meant—Adidas was out of the running. Reebok’s offer was fully guaranteed, no strings attached. Adidas had no chance with a contingency-based offer.
Embarrassed, Sonny had a sidebar with Goodwin.
Left alone on the couch, LeBron and Gloria stepped outside to look at the water. It felt as though the ground had shifted beneath them; the mood had gone from optimistic to awkward.
After a few minutes, the two sides reconvened, and Sonny told everyone: “We’re done here.”
Then Sonny and Pam talked privately with LeBron and Gloria. With a forlorn expression on his face, Sonny apologized for the Adidas offer. “That wasn’t what was supposed to happen,” he said.
LeBron nodded.
LUCY NICHOLSON//Getty ImagesMost of the stories that had been critical of LeBron’s mother, Gloria, were written by journalists who had no firsthand experience with poverty. These sportswriters were predominantly white men with no reference point for what it was like to raise a child on your own as a sixteen-year-old Black girl.
To Sonny, it felt as though he had spent three years helping LeBron prepare for liftoff. All that time, Sonny thought he’d be along for what promised to be the kind of ride that would transform the shoe industry. But now that it was time for ignition, Sonny realized he wouldn’t be joining the kid he’d gotten more attached to than any athlete he’d ever recruited. It felt like saying goodbye to a family member who wasn’t coming back.
Gloria felt it, too. So did Pam.
Sonny looked at LeBron. “Go to your next meeting,” he said. “But don’t tell them what our number was. Negotiate the highest number you can. Do what’s best for you.”
LeBron hugged him.
“We know what you’ve done for us, Sonny,” Gloria said. “We’ll never forget this.”
Pam, Sonny's wife, put her arms around Gloria. “I love you,” she said.
On the drive home that day, Sonny could hardly bring himself to say Adidas. “They lied to me,” he said.
Pam nodded.
“You know what I’m going to do,” he said. “You’re going to quit, aren’t you?” she asked. “Yeah. I’m done.”
A week later, Nike sent a private jet to bring LeBron, Gloria, and Maverick to Beaverton, Oregon. Nike’s corporate headquarters lacked the glamour of an oceanside mansion. But for LeBron, being on the Nike campus was like entering a fantasyland. There were buildings that featured larger-than- life images of the immortals—Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Bo Jackson. LeBron entered the Mia Hamm building and walked down a long hall- way lined on both sides with glass cases containing Air Jordans and other iconic sneakers worn by NBA stars. At the end of the hall was one empty case that was illuminated by a light, making it easy for LeBron to envision his shoes in the hallowed passageway.
LeBron entered Phil Knight’s conference room and saw that it was decked out with a variety of merchandise: workout clothes, swimwear, bathrobes, towels, socks, underwear, basketballs, gym bags, and sunglasses—all branded with LeBron’s name. Nike had also stocked the room with LeBron’s favorite breakfast cereal, Fruity Pebbles.
Lynn Merritt, a Nike executive, had thought of everything. And he was one step ahead of Reebok and Adidas on the sneaker front, too. Instead of showing LeBron sketches of what his shoes could look like, Merritt had sample shoes for LeBron to try on. Nike’s signature LeBron shoe was called Zoom Generation I, and it was patterned after his Hummer—the Nike stripe looked like the trim on the Hummer’s wheel well and the eyelets for the laces resembled the vehicle’s door handles.
Gloria loved the design.
LeBron slipped the shoes on. They fit as if they’d been tailored to his feet. He could see himself wearing them in the NBA.
Goodwin had never seen such a compelling sales pitch.
When it came time to talk money, Nike had expected LeBron and Gloria to step out. It wasn’t customary for an athlete to be present while the suits talked terms with the agent.
But LeBron insisted on being in the room. And he wanted his mother in the room, too. And Maverick.
When Nike CEO Phil Knight realized that LeBron wanted to be involved in every step of the process, he obliged, inviting LeBron into a private room with the lawyers.
It ended up being an underwhelming experience. Nike’s offer was around $70 million, including $5 million as a signing bonus. But Knight didn’t sign a check on the spot. If LeBron accepted Nike’s offer, he’d be going home empty-handed. The bonus would come well, later.
Goodwin let it be known that Nike’s offer wasn’t going to cut it.
That night, LeBron and his team had dinner at Lynn Merritt’s home. Afterward, while LeBron played video games with Merritt’s teenage son, Goodwin and Schreyer negotiated with Merritt. It was clear that the two sides were far apart.
The mood on the flight back from Beaverton was pensive.
Kevork S. Djansezian//Getty ImagesThe experience of watching LeBron James navigate his way through such a pivotal moment in his life inspired Maverick Carter to do more to help his best friend succeed. The opportunity also stoked within Maverick a desire to one day be a power player in his own right.
Maverick Carter had interned at Nike for two years. He’d learned a lot from Lynn Merritt. But Maverick had no degree in business, no background in law or finance. Nor was he experienced in the art of dealmaking. Yet Maverick had been in the room for the negotiations with Reebok, Adidas, and Nike. LeBron had insisted that his friend be given a seat at the table. It was an extraordinary opportunity, affording Maverick a glimpse of how CEOs Paul Fireman and Phil Knight operated. Maverick also got a deeper appreciation of just how much pressure LeBron was under. When Fireman put that $10 million check on the table, Maverick had been overwhelmed. “I can’t say I would have turned it down,” he later admitted to LeBron. In that moment, Maverick’s view was: Let’s take this check and get the hell out of here.
The experience of watching LeBron navigate his way through such a pivotal moment in his life inspired Maverick to do more to help his best friend succeed. The opportunity also stoked within Maverick a desire to one day be a power player in his own right. Until then, he was content to sit at the table and learn.
LeBron recognized that Maverick was inexperienced. But Maverick was trustworthy and loyal. LeBron had a lawyer and an agent to give him legal and financial advice. But he relied on Maverick as his confidant, and shared things with him that he didn’t discuss with his lawyer or his agent. When they got back from Oregon, they talked about Nike and Reebok and the future.
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LeBron realized he was facing a monumental decision. Maverick felt the weight of it, too.
LeBron’s heart was with Nike. But in his head, he couldn’t dismiss Reebok. It would have been an easy choice if Nike had simply put up more money. Alas, Nike had not done that.
In the meantime, Goodwin reengaged with Reebok. And two days after LeBron got back from Oregon, Reebok dispatched a team of executives and lawyers to Akron to seal the deal. Holed up in a hotel room, the Reebok group went to work on a new term sheet that would raise the final number to $115 million over seven years.
In a nearby room in the same hotel, LeBron met with Goodwin and Schreyer. At LeBron’s request, Goodwin made a final run at Nike. Goodwin gave Nike until the end of the day on May 21. That evening, Nike faxed a new offer—$90 million over seven years. At signing, LeBron would receive $10 million.
Nike had come up significantly. But so had Reebok. The bottom line was that LeBron stood to receive roughly $25 million more by signing with Reebok.
Late that night, LeBron was with Maverick in a restaurant behind the hotel, mulling over his situation. At eighteen, he had an opportunity to realize a dream. He’d long envisioned himself soaring in the same rare air that his idol had occupied. When LeBron was growing up, Michael Jordan was a real-life superhero. Nike had had a big hand in that, designing Jordan’s iconic logo and creating the epic commercials that made him the brightest star in sports.
LeBron yearned to shine as brightly as Jordan. But in order to get where he wanted to go, the boy who had spent his whole life in poverty would have to leave $25 million on the table. Picking at french fries, LeBron made up his mind. It was a defining moment.
Just after midnight, Goodwin and Schreyer entered the restaurant and slid into LeBron’s booth. They needed his decision.
“I want to go with Nike,” LeBron told them.
Excerpted from LEBRON by Jeff Benedict. Copyright © 2023 by Rockspring Media, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Avid Reader Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Jeff Benedict is the bestselling author of seventeen nonfiction books. He’s also a film and television producer. He is the coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Tiger Woods. The book was the basis of the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary Tiger, which Benedict executive produced. The Dynasty, the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots under Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady, was a New York Times bestseller.
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