Top 25 rookie seasons in NBA history: No. 25 LeBron James
The greatest rookie seasons in NBA history share a number of qualities, starting with individual statistical dominance. However, you can't overlook the context beyond the box score; initial expectations, team success, and overall legacy all matter.
While we wait for the 2019-20 season to resume, theScore's NBA editors have dusted off the record books to determine the top 25 rookie seasons in league history.
No. 25 in our series is former Cleveland Cavaliers phenom LeBron James.
Before the Association
No player has entered the league with more hype than James.
As a high school junior, he graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, paired with a bold caption: "The Chosen One." A year later, ESPN started to broadcast his games at St. Vincent-St. Mary.
Skipping college was a foregone conclusion. The only remaining question was whether James would live up to his billing as the next Michael Jordan, or the "Air Apparent," as Grant Wahl quipped in his SI profile.
Draft day
The day the Cavaliers won the draft lottery in May 2003, then-owner Gordon Gund triumphantly displayed a wine and gold, No. 23 James jersey, signaling the direction for both the franchise and the basketball world for years to come.
There were a number of promising forwards already on the Cavaliers' roster. Carlos Boozer was coming off a strong rookie season, and Ricky Davis had put up close to 21-5-6 as a 23-year-old.
None of that mattered, of course. The Cavs weren't going to outsmart themselves and pass on the surest NBA talent in years. The Akron-raised James was headed up the I-77 the second the ping-pong balls fell in Cleveland's favor.
Individual success
Head coach Paul Silas evidently didn't believe in going easy on his 18-year-old phenom. In his NBA debut, James logged a game-high 42:50 of playing time, dropping 25-6-9 with four steals against a veteran-laden Sacramento Kings team.
He would average 20.9 points, 5.9 assists, 5.5 rebounds, and 1.6 steals in 39.5 minutes per contest, the league's 10th-highest per-game workload that season.
Remarkably, James never really lagged during his first campaign, and he was named the Eastern Conference's top rookie in all six months. In late March, he torched the New Jersey Nets with 41 points and 13 assists - both season highs.
Even with the Denver Nuggets' Carmelo Anthony matching him with six Rookie of the Month awards, there was little surprise when the younger James received nearly twice as many first-place votes for Rookie of the Year, taking the honor over the star Syracuse product.
Team success
The results were encouraging. The Cavaliers improved from 17 wins in 2002-03 to 35 in 2003-04, their last losing campaign for the rest of the decade.
James' two most-frequent on-court partners were Boozer and Zydrunas Ilgauskas - hardly floor-spacers by today's standards. Still, the future 16-time All-Star excelled while operating as the Cavs' de facto point guard for much of the year, making the most out of his limited space.
Enduring legacy
Even though he left Cleveland as a free agent twice, James' arrival in 2003 completely changed the image of a franchise previously best known for being on the wrong end of a Michael Jordan dagger.
James has gone on to become everything he was promised to be - a once-in-a-generation talent whose presence is enough to elevate even the weakest rosters to title contention. Air Apparent indeed.
Come back on Wednesday to see who came in at No. 24 in theScore's Top 25 Rookie Seasons series.