Sports Poets Society

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/sports/basketball/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers-nba.html?action=click&contentCollection=Pro%20Basketball&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article By SCOTT CACCIOLA OCT. 24, 2016 The NY Times CLEVELAND — Great change, as it often does, swept through the N.B.A. during the off-season. It came in the form of the draft and trades and signings. Kevin Durant relocated to the Bay Area. Dwyane Wade went home to Chicago. Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose moved to New York. And there, at the quiet center of the storm, stood LeBron James, a newly re-minted champion, this time with the Cleveland Cavaliers . He remained active over the off-season. He dabbled in politics, endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. He engaged in social issues, speaking out on gun violence. And he emerged as the Cleveland Indians’ most visible and vocal fan at the beginning of their run to the World Series. Lest we forget, James al...

For as long as we’ve known him, LEBRON JAMES has always been surrounded by a talented and tight-knit group of teammates and friends. Fifteen years after we first connected with these Akron high schoolers, we caught up with the educators, entrepreneurs, and—yes—ballplayers, shining on their own terms.  words: ryan jones SLAM magazine #197 - May 2016 “‘Earned not given’ is everybody’s motto. We all feel if we work hard,  we can go out and earn the right to achieve what we want.”  — McGEE  IT WAS ONE OF THOSE SURREAL MOMENTS, time and place and context all jumbled up. On a quiet afternoon 15 years earlier, you walked into a small Catholic high school in Akron, OH, to interview some kids on the basketball team. And now here you are, back in the same building on another quiet afternoon 15 years later, sitting across from one of those same kids. Only now, you’re sitting in his office, the one with “Director of Athletics” on the door. “It’s definitely a ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/sports/basketball/lebron-james-phil-jackson-posse-comment.html?_r=0 By MIKE VORKUNOVNOV. 15, 2016 The New York Times Phil Jackson ’s description of LeBron James’s business partners as his “posse” in an interview published by ESPN on Monday drew an angry response from James, who took offense at the racial connotation of the word. The dispute between Jackson, the Knicks ’ president, and James, who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers and is one of the N.B.A.’s most visible players, also left Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony in the uncomfortable position of having to answer questions about a sudden feud involving one of his bosses and one of his good friends. The ESPN interview was a wide-ranging Q. and A. in which Jackson talked about the state of the Knicks, the criticism of his management of the team, and his relationship with Anthony. But James took exception with Jackson’s description of the group of friends who travel and work with ...