Lemming: LeBron had shot at No. 1 in NFL draft
Found July 05, 2011 on Fox Sports Florida:
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Tom Lemming swears LeBron James, the Miami Heat's superstar forward, could have been a No. 1 overall draft pick in the NFL. Because we're only days away from Friday's one-year anniversary of "The Decision," we'll put Lemming's hunch to the test. Lemming, the national recruiting expert for CBS Network, remembers when James played wide receiver at Akron (Ohio) St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. James didn't play his senior season, but, as it has been well-documented, he was a terror as a junior, earning All-State honors. "He was on my (2002 pre-season) All-America team and in my early top 100," Lemming said. "I had him in there. And then when he didn't play football his senior year I had to take him out. But he could have been a No. 1 pick in football because he was 6-8 with a 40-inch vertical. There wasn't no defender in high school that could have defended against him. "He wasn't allowed to be hit in practice so he wasn't 100 percent of a football player yet. If he did give it 100 percent like he did in basketball there's no doubt he would have been a No. 1 draft pick." Lemming says that now. Back in 2002 he had no idea what kind of athleticmarketing force he was dealing with. "He was the No. 1 wide receiver in the Midwest, and I would venture to say he might have been the best in the country that year," Lemming said. "I think he had like 63 catches for 1,200 yards. At the time I interviewed him he was already a superstar in basketball, but I don't follow basketball and didn't realize it. "I tried to convince him to go football. And then he told me, 'I've been offered 7 million to go play my high school senior year in Italy.' I said, 'Oh, well, maybe I'm dealing with a different guy here.' " NFL rules state a player has to be out of high school for three years before he's draft-eligible. That means James, who entered the NBA straight out of high school in 2003, wouldn't have been eligible for the NFL draft until 2006.