LeBron James took a serious look at playing in the NFL during the 2011 NBA lockout.
There was a ton of chatter back in the day about whether or not the three-time NBA champion would take a shot at pro football. Well, it turns out he started training to switch sports when it wasn’t known when basketball would return. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
King James said the following about training for football while the NBA was locked out during a recent Uninterrupted podcast, according to Sporting News:
The thoughts came into my mind. I had no idea how long the lockout was going to be. And myself and my trainer, Mike Mancias, we really started to actually train to be a football player when it came to like October and November. We started to clock our times with the 40s. We started to add a little bit more in our bench presses and things of that nature. We started to add more sled into our agenda with our workouts.
LeBron’s business partner Maverick Carter added, “I know he got a contract from Jerry Jones that he framed and put in his office.”
You can watch the full video below.
I honestly think LeBron James would have been a force in the NFL. He already has a body that resembles an NFL player, and he’s 6’9″.
That’s a recipe for absolute domination from a physical standpoint. Sure, you don’t know how he’d do getting jammed off the line, but he’s more or less a taller Calvin Johnson.
Even if you only threw to him in the red zone, I’m not sure how you’d defend jump balls against King James.
Imagine the TV ratings for an NFL game featuring LeBron James. They would have been absolutely gigantic. They would have been insane.
Unfortunately, we’ll never know at this point because that window is officially closed. It’s honestly too bad because I think he would have been a hell of a football player.