Bosh witnessed LeBron’s physical peak but was equally impressed with his mind.

LeBron James has many unique gifts. One of them is his photographic memory, which gives him a special advantage in clutch moments. But his insane IQ isn’t just limited to on the court. Off of it, his brilliant mind is just as impressive because of how spooky-good his memory is.

LeBron’s former teammate Chris Bosh said it well when he remembered the time he was blown away by something he heard. The amazement of being around James didn’t stop when he left the court. All you needed to do was sit him down and put a classic sports game on TV. Regardless of the sport, Bron will probably take one glance and immediately rattle off the “who, what, when, where, and why” of the entire setting.

“Look, we’re all professional basketball players, so when LeBron remembers something from a basketball game, even if it’s from a few years ago, it doesn’t exactly blow me away,” Bosh says. “But it’s when he remembers other stuff, like stuff he shouldn’t even know, where you’re like, ‘What?!’ We’ll be watching a football game, and he’ll be like, ‘Yeah, that cornerback was taken in the fourth round of the 2008 draft from Central Florida,’ or something. And I’ll be like, ‘How do you know that?’ And he’ll be like, ‘I can’t help it.'”

The King’s point about “I can’t help it” is a perfect encapsulation of what makes him phenomenal and also what hinders him. Have you ever heard of the phrase “paralysis by analysis”? The four-time MVP is a thinker, a deeply intuitive thinker at that. Most of the time, he’ll use just his mind to help his team get win games. But sometimes, that extra thinking can wear him down and cause him to make errors. You take the good with the bad.

The moment LeBron made everyone’s jaw drop

Veteran head coach Doc Rivers once said: “There’s a lot of people in the league with LeBron’s body. There’s no one in the league with his brain.” Especially once James reached a deeper stage of his career — although he was still in arguably the best shape of any player — it was his mind that allowed him to prolong his NBA career until now.

A great example of Bron showing off his brain power was against the Boston Celtics in 2018. After a pretty bad loss, it would’ve been normal for him to remember only the mistakes. Instead, he walked down an entire memory lane in front of reporters.

“I had two turnovers where I felt like they were just really bad,” James said after going down 3-2 to Boston. “My first turnover, I tried to — I saw something happening and Marcus Morris did a great job of reading it. I threw it up ahead to Kev [Kevin Love], and [Morris] picked it off. My second turnover, I went baseline, lost my footing on Marcus Morris, another turnover. A couple of them, one in transition to Jeff Green, I thought I put it on his hands, and he kind of fumbled it. Wish I could have that one back; I’d maybe bounce-pass that one,” he continued narrating the whole sequence of plays that followed.

LeBron’s brain is keeping him young

Even in his 21st season in the association, Bron was a 39-year-old often looking more like a 29-year-old. While the Lakers forward has shown he has plenty left in the tank physically, it’s truly his brain that has allowed him to play this well so late into his career.

James’ smarts are mostly manifested in his ability to pass and distribute on offense. He knows just about every play in the book and every defensive scheme known to man. He’s prepared to zip a pass through four defenders and a fifth arm because he knows when the defense will rotate and where he’ll have a crevasse of an opening. At this rate, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer could play well into the 40s. If his athleticism remains slightly below elite, there’s no telling when the King will stop.