Saturday flashback: ESPN first telecast of LeBron in high school

Since you’re going to be seeing plenty of LeBron James (the networks hope) in the upcoming weeks, I thought it would be fun to dig up the first time he was exposed on the national stage.

The hype was so great for James that ESPN televised one of his high school games on Dec. 12, 2002.

This clip features the open and some early action from the game. ESPN brought in all its big guns: Dick Vitale, Bill Walton and Jay Bilas. Dan Shulman handled the play-by-play.

Vitale: “If he’s half as good as I’ve heard about him, he’s going to be one special athlete.”

Bilas: “He’s the best high school player I’ve ever seen.”

Turned out James lived up to the hype.