With Thursday night's NBA draft fast approaching, the league's 21 general managers with first-round picks - the other nine forfeited theirs through trades - are all looking for the next LeBron James.
It's a waste of time, though, because there aren't any. At least not in this draft. Perhaps not for many drafts to come. The 6-foot-8, 255-pound James is a freak of nature, much as Michael Jordan was, and Magic Johnson before him, and Dr. J before him.
And even matched against those icons, the man they rightly call King may stand alone. After all, he's bigger and more powerful than Jordan, Dr. J or Kobe Bryant. He's more athletic than Magic or Karl Malone. In some ways, he's almost Shaquille O'Neal with a reliable shot and Magic's passing skills, given that the game never has seen anyone as physically overpowering at his position of small forward, much as there's never been a center with the overwhelming size and athletic ability of Shaq.
So no matter how hard any of these GMs look and hope, a younger version of James isn't walking through their organization's doors in this draft. Or next draft. Or likely the draft after that.
No one's been much of a close resemblance to LeBron since he was drafted out of high school in June of 2003, and no one now or on the horizon appears capable of matching that unique blend of size, skill and passion. That's the way it is with true greatness. It's rare. Best to enjoy it for what it is rather than pretending it can be duplicated. Or to pilfer a line from Billy Crystal at Muhammad Ali's matchless memorial service, a Picasso, a Mozart, a Shakespeare, an Ali comes along every thousand years or so. You could argue the same about LeBron, whose physical gifts and internal drive often defy description.
In the biggest game of his life Sunday night, a game that might wrongly have defined his legacy should he have lost, he not only posted a triple-double for the Cleveland Cavaliers in their historic win over Golden State but also delivered the signature play - maybe of the series - with a stunning late block of an Andre Iguodala layup that would have given the Warriors the lead. Instead, it spurred the Cavs to their first NBA crown as the first team in NBA history to win the finals from a 1-3 hole.
Yes, Kyrie Irving hammered home the nail with a 3-pointer, but even then James buried the free throw - after a brutal tumble - that iced the 93-89 win and sent Cleveland, the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to rocking as it has not rocked in 52 years.
For the uninformed, that's the last time any baseball, basketball or football professional team from the Buckeye State had claimed a world championship, those Jim Brown-led Browns winning the NFL title that year.
In all those disappointing decades since, the "Mistake by the Lake," as Cleveland sometimes has been called, was forced to endure such heartbreaks as The Shot (Jordan over the Cavs' Craig Ehlo in the 1989 playoffs), the Fumble (the Browns' Ernest Byner in the 1987 NFL playoffs) and the Drive (Denver's John Elway over the Browns in the '86 posteason).
Now The Block may erase most of that.
"Cleveland," the Akron-born James shouted at courtside late Sunday with unbridled passion, his eyes still moist with tears of joy, "this is for you."
For anyone who's ever deeply loved the place they call home, that degree of emotion and pride had to quicken the heart and touch the soul. Roots can still matter. We aren't all as mobile a culture as we might want to believe.
This doesn't mean James will remain in Cleveland for the rest of his career, now that he's brought an NBA crown to the southern shore of Lake Erie.
He's still just 31, despite wrapping up his 13th NBA season. While he seems content in Cleveland, he also surely knows from his four years in Miami the attention he could receive in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. Then again, maybe he'd have more privacy in those cities, since he wouldn't be the only name in town.
Yet whatever road he travels professionally from this point forward, the words of Golden State coach Steve Kerr after Game 7 won't lessen in power or praise for at least another three or four more years.
Said Kerr: "(James is) such a force physically, so powerful. I thought he brought more force to the last three games than he did the first four. But he's one of the great players of all time and obviously was the key to the turnaround."
Whether James is the greatest of all time won't become a fair discussion until he retires. What if he winds up with six titles, same as Jordan, but in what many might fairly consider a tougher, deeper NBA? What if he winds up with four or five, but those championships were won with two or more teams rather than the six MJ won with the Bulls? Is that better or worse than His Airness?
That's clearly a discussion for later. For today, the one thing that seems certain is that no future LeBron exists in this year's draft. Former LSU star Ben Simmons would appear to lack both a shot and a heart to challenge James. Brandon Ingram certainly lacks LeBron's strength at this point, and quite possibly his explosiveness. No one else comes close.
But then that could and should be said of almost everyone else in the NBA today - and by the time James retires, quite possibly anyone in the history of the NBA. Because when you can lead a team from Cleveland to a world championship, you are indeed the basketball equivalent of Ali, Mozart, Picasso and Shakespeare.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.