The ad begins with a voice-over. “I’m going for my third gold medal,” LeBron James says, as his body fills the frames. The camera slowly zooms in as he labors through a workout, exhaling at the top of a pull-up.
“But I’m still thinking …”
The camera holds as he dips out of view. When James rises again, all we see is his face. It’s strained and glistening. Sweat drips from a black durag, down his nose and into his beard. His eyes burn.
“… about my first bronze.”
Two decades ago, LeBron’s first taste of Olympic basketball was a cocktail of humiliation and disappointment. As the youngest member of the infamous 2004 USA men’s basketball team that lost to Argentina in the semifinals, James was an ascending afterthought who logged a grand total of three points in three minutes of action during what will be remembered as the most egregious defeat he’s ever experienced.
