Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but someone thinks LeBron James would be an outstanding football player.
Yup, it’s that time of year. The sports calendar is quiet, and we’re all left to wonder: What if? We’ve heard NBA coach Doc Rivers suggest James could excel in the NFL. There were rumblings that LeBron considered it in 2011, when the NBA lockout began to drag. My colleague Charles Curtis even made a convincing case on our website.
LeBron, a first-team all-state receiver in high school, is such a special athlete that he’d probably be terrific at just about every sport he played. And retired NFL tight end Greg Olsen thinks that if LeBron made the transition — even at this very moment — the NBA star would be an All-Pro in no time.
“If I could coach LeBron James for one year, I could make him an All-Pro wide receiver,” Olsen said on Colin Cowherd’s podcast. “There’s no question in my mind. I could turn Russell Westbrook into an All-Pro free safety.”
Could LeBron be an elite WR?
On the latest @ColinCowherd podcast – @gregolsen88 describes how he believes that he could coach LeBron into an All-Pro NFL player pic.twitter.com/yARwcvbLTs
— The Volume (@TheVolumeSports) March 8, 2021
Olsen added: “There’s a handful of those guys that could make that transition just because they’re so unique. But there’s few and far between (with) those guys. But yes, I do think he can play NFL wide receiver. For how long? I think he’d be stupid to stop playing basketball and come play football. But yes, I do think he could in the short term.”
It’s probably a bit late for LeBron, 36, to change sports. But, hey, it would be another way for him to channel Michael Jordan, who famously spent time away from the NBA to try making it in MLB.
