If LeBron James comes here, it’s not the end of his story: It’s only the beginning. Glancing backward from the year 2018, we wondered: What would a documentary about LeBron’s time in New York look like? We asked filmmaker Jonathan Hock, director of The Lost Son of Havana and ESPN’s upcoming “30 for 30” entry The Best That Never Was, to use his imagination to storyboard LeBron’s future New York retrospective.
June 2011 (Establishing Shot)
LeBron wins his third-straight MVP and his first NBA title on a last-second three-pointer at the buzzer over the Utah Jazz. It is the first Knicks championship since 1973. The parade down the Canyon of Heroes, because of the record number of attendees, is extended all the way up to Inwood.
Photo Illustration: Jed Egan; Photos: Jed Egan, Dima Korotayev/Epsilon/Getty Images, Jorge Rey/Getty Images, Tim Boyle/Getty Images, iStockphoto
2015
Woody Allen casts LeBron in Rhapsody in Orange and Blue. Woody plays a man who brings his girlfriend, played by Dakota Fanning, to the Garden, and she ultimately falls in love with LeBron. Edie Falco wins an Oscar for playing Fanning’s mom, who ends up married to Woody’s character at the end of the film.
Photo Illustration: Jed Egan; Photos: Jason Merritt/Getty Images, Frazer Harrison/Getty Images, Patrick McMullan
June 2016
Knicks win sixth-straight title and LeBron his eighth-straight MVP. Mayor Bloomberg, now into his fifth term, announces that he is endorsing LeBron to take over Senator Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat, citing the $700 billion he has contributed to the New York economy. At Bloomberg’s press conference announcing his candidacy, LeBron says if he’s not elected, he will retire. Polls the next day show him leading Rick Lazio 84 percent to 12 percent, and he’s ultimately elected in a landslide.
Photo Illustration: Jed Egan; Photos: Noel Vasquez/Getty Images, Alex Wong/Getty Images, Hiroko Masuike/Getty Images, Jemal Countess/Getty Images, iStockphoto
June-July 2018
In the wake of the Knicks’ eighth-straight title and LeBron’s tenth-straight MVP, NBA commissioner David Stern retires to become a Washington lobbyist. Congress, led by Senator LeBron James (D-NY), gives the NBA a complete antitrust exemption, along with New York city broadcast networks. Mayor Bloomberg then buys every major New York City network and plays only Knicks games in prime time, on every station.
Photo Illustration: Jed Egan; Photos, Chris McGrath/Getty Images, Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
2022
The USA men’s basketball team, led by coach and starting power forward LeBron James, wins the gold medal at the New York Summer Olympics. LeBron becomes the first sitting member of Congress to win a gold medal.
Photo Illustration: Jed Egan; Photos: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images, Jamie Squire/Getty Images
