{"id":6953,"date":"2011-05-30T11:00:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T09:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=6953"},"modified":"2011-07-01T10:33:26","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T08:33:26","slug":"1-on-1-with-lebron-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=6953","title":{"rendered":"1 on 1 with LeBron James"},"content":{"rendered":"

by \u015etefan Bolea<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Translation from Romanian by Caroline Carver & Mircea Filimon [MTTLC student] <\/em><\/p>\n

pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click aici<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On one of the sixteen basketball courts of a Manhattan high school, Cosmin L\u0103z\u0103rescu, the seventeen year old son of some Romanian immigrants, was starting his 23rd 1 on 1 game. He was playing so well that many had interrupted their games and sat down to watch him. About 50 occasional spectators had gathered. He had 22 consecutive victories, but this time the odds seemed against him. His opponent, a black guy who measured 1.98 m in height (about 5 cm taller than Cosmin) was leading 8 to 1. Cosmin tried to imagine that Jim Morrison was saying at the back of his mind \u2018The public has gathered here to see me lose!\u2019. He was tired so he asked for a time-out to drink some Gatorade and consult the Sun-Tzu, Machiavelli and Baudelaire collection on his Kindle. His two close friends who weren\u2019t surprised that a guy with an IQ of almost 180, who dropped out of high-school because he didn\u2019t feel valued amongst the waves of mediocrity of his classmates could play basketball so well, supported him discreetly. Samuel said to him \u2018You\u2019ve still got a shot. But you need to improve your defence game\u2026\u2019. Charlie quoted Al Pacino saying in The Devil\u2019s Advocate (also purposely; it was a famous reference in their circle): \u2018Maybe it\u2019s your time to lose\u2019. Cosmin approved tacitly, caught his breath (he had been playing for 6 hours, with very few breaks) and returned to the court. A few spectators cheered him, others watched silently with concentration. Eddie, the black thug had the ball \u2013 he needed 3 more attacks to break Cosmin\u2019s never-before-beaten series. He made a cross-over, a dribble dodge to the left, closed himself in the angle and threw over Cosmin\u2019s somewhat indolent block: 9-1. Charlie thought: \u2018The point of no return\u2019. Eddie thought: \u2018Another one and it\u2019ll be set-1\u2019. Cosmin wasn\u2019t thinking anything and his face seemed resigned, but those who knew him could see that that was a deceiving look.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eddie gained courage; he had never beaten Cosmin and many considered him a legend of that basketball court, with moments of genius when he rivalled the best players in the NCAA. Too bad he was a high school drop-out; he could be drafted. Eddie dribbled forward and slam-dunked. He was underestimating his opponent and wanted to end it spectacularly and in force. A couple of chicks from the audience sighed when Eddie, just like an unleashed Othello, with his impressive leap of almost 1.4 m, jumped to slam-dunk. Surprisingly, like a Titus Andronicus who with one hand invites you to the table and with the other feeds you the carrion of his family, blocked him at the panel and took back the ball. Eddie was stunned \u2013 block + take, when he had two more attacks and he was already hearing the proverbial music of victory\u2026 Cosmin didn\u2019t try too hard; he stepped out of the lane and made a perfect stop-shoot directly into the chains of the high school basket. 2-9. On the following moves, Cosmin lowered his efforts and didn\u2019t even attack: he scored 6 hoops from stop-shoot, tiring his opponent with dribbling that seemed to distance him from the basket and throwing from dead angles. The spectators were more and more excited watching this switch of forces (but also the comeback of the Manhattan Imperator). An insignificant percentage of them were actually bored with Cosmin\u2019s passive play, who wasn\u2019t attacking anymore, but throwing perfectly, even further from the basket. 8-9. Stop-shoot for tie. This time, Eddie, with his superior physique, didn\u2019t fall for it again. He caught on to Cosmin\u2019s lazy and cunning strategy and blocked him somewhere on the left side of the basket, close to the three point line. Being more agile, Cosmin got back the ball, passed it between his opponent\u2019s legs and with a final effort, scored a tie with a simple lay-up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From 9-1 to 9-9, Eddie was rather frustrated and wanted to at least make some nasty blocks, at the limit of fault, anticipating that his opponent would save himself with lousy stop-shoots. Cosmin thought about that and seeing Eddie\u2019s hateful wolf-like look automatically change his tactic. He wanted to finish nicely anyway, for the public. 9-9. Cosmin started his series of annoying and deceiving dribbling, ever further from the basket: he was heading to the centre of the court, to its limit, but Eddie was tailing him like a border policeman or a bus controller. Just like in tango, but the other way around, Cosmin started taking two steps forward, one back: now they were at the three point line. Cosmin dribbled backward and Eddie was hovering all around him, with the most aggressive defence he was capable of. Cosmin made a dribbling dodge; Eddie went for the dodge and his opponent threw the ball to the panel, turning around him at 360 degrees and throwing himself in a wild slam-dunk. The spectators were rooting for him, 90% of them were already filming, some of them had taken out their laptops and were uploading live on youtube. Anyway, it was an impossible move, you needed a replay to understand what had happened. Dodge, self-alley-oop \u00e0 la Tracy McGrady and avoiding the opponent with a pirouette. Taking advantage of the opponent\u2019s confusion who thought he was playing an alien, on the last move, Cosmin made a simple stop-shoot over Eddie\u2019s symbolic block and finished the 23rd consecutive game 11-9.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The next day, Cosmin was already a star on youtube. He had received loads of emails and texts from fans. He had lain in bed and was reading Heidegger when his phone rang: \u2018Hello, my name is James O\u2019Brian and I\u2019m drafting for the NBA. I\u2019ve seen the 23 videos on youtube. You\u2019re a true genius!\u2019
\n\u2018I\u2019m not in high school, I\u2019ve dropped out!\u2019
\n\u2018I\u2019m sure this can be worked out somehow. At 17 years old you\u2019re above the average of players in the NBA. We would like to put together a promotional game between you and one of the best players in the NBA!\u2019
\n\u2018Fine, only if you bring them to my old high school. I only play there!\u2019
\n\u2018I think we can work this out as well. Who would you like to play against? What do you say about Kobe Bryant?\u2019
\n\u2018He\u2019s too old; I\u2019d beat him too hard.\u2019
\nThe agent laughed noisily and said: \u2018Well, not quite! Who do you want then?\u2019
\n\u2018LeBron James. I think I\u2019d finally do justice to the Cleveland guys if I humiliate him\u2026\u2019
\nThe agent goes on: \u2018Excellent choice! L\u0103z\u0103rescu vs. James, present vs. past. I think this game will sell well!\u2019
\n\u2018It\u2019s a deal then!\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the day of the game, LeBron was looking at his polished nails out of boredom: \u2018I\u2019m playing again on a high school court, with some sort of a loser for charity. Good thing I get about 8 million to move my ass all the way here.\u2019 He smiled to himself: \u2018I wonder if my opponent gets enough for a burger and a shake.\u2019
\nThere were about 16 TV stations who had arranged their cameras for live broadcast (including PRO TV Romania, which was presenting the game like the battle between St. George and the Dragon). The high school court was packed full with Hollywood superstars and NBA scouters. Before reaching the court and starting the warm-up, LeBron was stopped by his agent: \u2018Careful, don\u2019t beat him too hard\u2026 Let him score 5 hoops or so. Play up to, say 60%. It\u2019s just some kid!\u2019
\nLeBron laughed with an air of superiority: \u2018Of course, we need to create a little suspense for TV. A little drama!\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When he entered the court, LeBron was received like a Roman gladiator, with cheers and heartfelt cursing as well. Cosmin had already warmed up. LeBron shook hands with the kid who was about 10 years younger than him and 10 cm shorter. LeBron thought about not traumatising him too much. He had seen some videos of Cosmin on youtube, but he wasn\u2019t all that impressed. \u2018After all, if there\u2019d been youtube at the time I was 13, I would have been sanctified by now.\u2019 LeBron considered himself a Titan, a god among men and was under the impression that his moves influenced the new media technologies: the PS 3 was modulated after his exceptional gift. And come to think about it, he wasn\u2019t too wrong. In his latest NBA game, he had scored 7 3 points hoops in overtime, 2 of them almost from the middle of the court. He was used to being adulated, controversial, worshipped. He was also used to underestimating all of his opponents. That\u2019s because he didn\u2019t think too much about them: they didn\u2019t stand a chance to stop LeBron.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

First attack: LeBron let Cosmin start out of generosity. He was the one with the disadvantage. He was playing the world\u2019s greatest basketball player. Cosmin started dribbling. LeBron stood at a distance, not even bothering to defend himself too carefully: 1-0, 2-0, 3-0. All out of stop-shoot. On the fourth hoop, LeBron actually jumped to cover the basket with all his strength and energy, but Cosmin threw when he was landing and somewhat from the right side, from an impossible angle. And it was 4-0. The crowd was divided: some were cheering with joy, others were wondering if by any chance the game had been faked. The suspicion of the latter vanished when they saw LeBron\u2019s suffering face. \u2018How did he score? It was impossible! I need to focus! No more playing around!\u2019 On the following move, Cosmin smoothly dribbled LeBron but on the lay-up he was slammed to the ground really nastily by his opponent who weighed 30 kg more than him. The crowd was already on the victim\u2019s side. The CNN commentator: \u2018A dirty wrestling move from King James.\u2019 Cosmin attacked again after he wiped himself of blood and dust. He dribbled LeBron from the behind \u2013 the interception was in the air when Cosmin threw from behind to the panel, defying any block possibility: 5-0. LeBron\u2019s agent was already worrying: \u2018WTF? Is this for real?\u2019 LeBron asked for a time-out. His psychological counsellor came to him, but the star totally ignored him. He didn\u2019t even hear what he was buzzing about. He thought: \u2018The kid is deceiving. He\u2019s not good, but he\u2019s very tricky. I let him up to 3-0 (he\u2019d let him only up to 1-0). But it\u2019s 5-0 already and I need to get the ball from him. Fuck it, I only need to make an interception and you\u2019ll see how I score 11 consecutive dunks. I\u2019ll only shoot straight to the panel or between his legs. I\u2019ll take the fool\u2019s ball\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cosmin didn\u2019t hear his thoughts but guessed them perfectly: \u2018If I lose the ball, I lose the game. You can\u2019t defend against LeBron. I have to make it so that he can\u2019t defend himself against me.\u2019 Stop-shoot 6-0. 7-0. On the following attack, LeBron made his second nasty fault, outraging all of America. He threw himself with his elbow in the back of Cosmin\u2019s head. He fell badly, but not before scoring by lay-up: 8-0. LeBron looked like a boxer who kept pulling back in a corner or a bull who was being attacked by a thousand toreadors at the same time. The second time-out for the superstar: \u2018I\u2019ll kill the fool! I\u2019ll kill him.\u2019 Cosmin: \u2018Three more attacks\u2026\u2019 Stop-shoot: the incredible 10-0. Winning ball. LeBron was in a terrible mental excitement. He hadn\u2019t felt like that since his first NBA year, when he felt he had something to prove. He was humiliated and helpless. Cosmin made an attack dodge, LeBron went for the dodge for a fraction of a second, then came back while Cosmin was throwing to the basket from about 9 m away. After he\u2019d thrown the ball (as it was seen on the replay and commented with indignation on all the TV sports channels in the world) Cosmin felt how the neighbourhood was crumbling on his head: LeBron had \u2018slipped\u2019 purposely on him. 11-0. LeBron lost his first 1 on 1 in his professional career, but at least he banged the kid really well. \u2018I hope he has good medical insurance.\u2019 Before he passed out, hundreds of reporters rushed to Cosmin\u2019s side to tape the champion\u2019s statement: \u2018How did you manage to beat the world\u2019s best player?\u2019 No one understood it at that moment: \u2018Zenon, I did it all for you!\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the hospital, Cosmin was recovering slowly but surely from the light cerebral contusion LeBron gave him. His Zenon statement was on all the channels; Harvard professors of Hellenism were explaining the paradoxes of classical logic. LeBron\u2019s statement was all over as well. He was yelling angrily: \u2018I let him! It was a shift for entertainment. Or voodoo, whatever you want.\u2019 And when the reporters were laughing mockingly: \u2018Anyway, I want a rematch!\u2019. Cosmin wrote quietly in the diary, that would one day sell better than Sun-Tzu: \u2018I learned the lesson when I came back at 1-9 to win with 11-9. First of all, my opponent had relaxed, his every move was going right and he was smelling the victory, no matter how good I was. But I changed at 1-9. He remained in his former story. I said: \u201cI won\u2019t lose another ball\u201d. And that\u2019s how it was. If I don\u2019t lose the ball, I don\u2019t lose the attack; I can win not 11-9, but 100-9, \u221e – 9. If I\u2019d lost one single attack, I would have demoralized myself even more, the opponent would have tasted blood and I would have lost everything. The most important thing is that the score allowed my comeback: it was 9-1 not 10-1. There are a thousand lanes between 9-1 and 10-1. The most important thing is to snap out of it when you\u2019re on the edge of the abyss, not when you already have a leg inside it. In other words, do you remember that movie with the parallel universes when Jet Li ends up in the inferno? Jet Li wouldn\u2019t suffer in the inferno, he\u2019d beat up everyone. Just like when I was sitting in the subway, and it was full as always and I had three free seats near me. No one could sit next to me because I was giving them ugly threatening looks. Not to all at the same time, one by one, so that they didn\u2019t even dare want to sit next to me. What\u2019s the connection? You can defeat all your opponents in the world if you are a good fighter and take them one by one. You can beat 1000, 100000, a billion. One by one. You will not get tired, but your strength will increase with every new victim. Why did I beat LeBron, who is 10 times a better player than me, better than anyone, if it\u2019s up to that? It\u2019s not because he underestimated me, the surprise disappeared at 4-0, but because I didn\u2019t give him a single chance! If I\u2019d lost a ball, I would have lost the entire game.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cosmin\u2019s phone rings again: \u2018I\u2019m Shaquille O\u2019Neal\u2019s agent. Hold on a moment, I\u2019ll put you through to Mr. O\u2019Neal.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018Hello Cosmin!\u2019
\n\u2018Hello Shaq!\u2019
\n\u2018Do you want to play me 1 on 1 in Boston?\u2019
\n\u2018Now that\u2019s a challenge\u2026\u2019 thought Cosmin and smiled with delight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by \u015etefan Bolea Translation from Romanian by Caroline Carver & Mircea Filimon [MTTLC student] pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click aici   On one of the sixteen basketball courts of a Manhattan high school, Cosmin L\u0103z\u0103rescu, the seventeen year old son of some Romanian immigrants, was starting his 23rd 1 on 1 game. He was playing so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[731,22],"tags":[500,1152,1123,520,403,1116,39],"class_list":["post-6953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-31","category-short-story","tag-caroline-carver","tag-egophobia-31","tag-english","tag-mircea-filimon","tag-mttlc","tag-short-story","tag-stefan-bolea"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-1O9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6953"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7263,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6953\/revisions\/7263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}