As the number of reporters waiting to ask LeBron James postgame questions ballooned to about 20 during his junior season with the St. Vincent-St. Mary basketball program, a decision was made to streamline interviews by holding news conferences.

“When we traveled around the country, there were some reporters that didn’t want to believe that he was that great,” STVM coach Dru Joyce II recently told the Beacon Journal. “There were some that thought that he was catered to, and they came at him like that. He handled it much better than most teenagers would.”

In the same season, a 17-year-old James appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the title “The Chosen One” and the following caption: “High school junior LeBron James would be an NBA lottery pick right now.” The magazine’s publish date of Feb. 18, 2002, came roughly 16 months before the Cavaliers drafted James first overall.

“When the Sports Illustrated thing happened, those are high expectations, but I always believed from those years in high school that he had the shoulders to handle it,” Joyce said. “He was a unique person who could handle all that’s been put on him.”