LeBron James Biography Athlete, Famous Basketball Players (1984–)

 

Synopsis

Born in Ohio in 1984, LeBron James garnered national attention as the top high school basketball player in the country. With his unique combination of size, athleticism and court vision, he became one of the premier players in the NBA for the Cleveland Cavaliers. After leading the Miami Heat to titles in 2012 and 2013, he returned to Cleveland and helped the franchise claim its first championship in 2016.

High School Basketball Star

Professional athlete LeBron Raymone James was born on December 30, 1984, in Akron, Ohio. At an early age, he showed a natural talent for basketball. James was recruited by St. Vincent-St. Mary High School to join their basketball team in 1999.
As a freshman, James averaged 18 points per game. He helped the team to a Division III state title by scoring 25 points in the championship game. Word of his advanced basketball skills spread, and James received several honors for his performance. As a high school sophomore, he was chosen for the USA Today All-USA First Team. James was the first sophomore ever selected for this award. His team also won the Division III state title for the second year in a row.
The following school year, James was named PARADE magazine's High School Boys Basketball Player of the Year and Gatorade Player of the Year. Following the end of his junior year, James was such a strong player that he contemplated going pro.
Deciding to finish his education, James had a tremendous senior year on the court. He averaged 31.6 points per game, helping his team clinch their third state title. The team also earned the top national ranking that year. Overall, James scored 2,657 points, 892 rebounds and 523 assists during his four years at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. He would soon emerge as one of the National Basketball Association's leading players.

Career With Cleveland Cavaliers

With his impressive record, it was no surprise that James was the first player picked in the 2003 NBA Draft. The Cleveland Cavaliers signed the powerful young forward, and he proved to be a valuable addition to the then-struggling franchise. The team had ended the previous season in eighth place in the Eastern Conference. Around this time, James also signed several endorsement deals, including one with Nike for $90 million.
During the 2003-04 season, James made history when he became the first member of the Cavalier franchise to win the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. He also became the youngest player—at only 20 years old—to receive this honor. Additionally, James, averaging 20 points per game at this time, became one of only three rookies to accomplish this feat, putting him in the same company as Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson.
During the summer of 2004, James made his Olympic debut at the Summer Games in Athens, Greece, as part of the U.S. Olympic basketball team. He and his teammates won bronze medals after defeating Lithuania. Argentina took home the gold after beating Italy in the finals.
Outside of his basketball career, James went through some changes in his personal life around this time. He became a father for the first time in October 2004, when he and girlfriend Savannah Brinson welcomed a son, LeBron Jr.

NBA Star

James continued to excel professionally in the NBA the following season, upping his average points per game to 27.2. He made NBA history again in 2005, when he became the youngest player to score more than 50 points in one game. He was selected for the NBA All-Star Game for the first time, a feat he would repeat several times over the next few seasons.
In 2006, James helped his team defeat the Washington Wizards in the first round of playoff action. From there, the Cavaliers took on the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference semifinals. James scored an average of 26.6 per game in this postseason match-up, but it wasn't enough to secure victory for his team. While his team wasn't at the top of rankings, James himself continued to receive special recognition for his abilities. He was named the Most Valuable Player in the NBA All-Star Game in 2006. That same year, James reached a new contract agreement with the Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers proved to be stronger competitors the following season, defeating Detroit to win the Eastern Conference. In the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, however, the Cavaliers lost their championship bid in four consecutive games. Also during this time, James became a father for the second time. His girlfriend, Savannah Brinson, gave birth to their son, Bryce Maximus, in June of 2007.
During the 2007-08 season, James continued to help the Cavaliers improve their standing in the Eastern Conference. The team made it to the semifinals, where they were defeated by the Boston Celtics in seven games. In terms of individual performance, James had a stellar year, outperforming such rival players as Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson by scoring an average of 30 points per game, the highest average in the NBA regular season.

Career With Miami Heat

That summer, James traveled to Beijing, China, to play with the likes of Bryant, Jason Kidd and Dwyane Wade on the U.S. Olympic basketball team. This time around the U.S. team brought home the gold after defeating Spain in the final round.
Early in the 2008-09 season, sports journalists and fans began talking about James's future in the sport. He had the option to become a free agent in 2010, and there was much discussion as to where James would end up. Some journalists identified the New York Knicks as a potential suitor for the rising player. James made several references to his impending free agent status, but he was sure to downplay the matter. "I am focused on the team that I am on right now and winning a championship ... I don't think about making a change at this point," James told reporters.
Shortly after becoming a free agent, however, James announced that he would be joining the Miami Heat for the 2010-11 season. His fans in Cleveland were less than pleased, and many considered his departure a betrayal to his hometown. Soon after James's announcement, Cleveland Cavaliers majority owner Dan Gilbert wrote an open letter declaring James's decision as "selfish," "heartless" and a "cowardly betrayal." Unfazed, James finished second in the league during his first season with the Heat, scoring 26.7 points per game.

Championship Wins

The 2011-12 season also saw major success for James and the Miami Heat; with his team's victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals, the superstar forward finally earned his first title. In the clinching Game 5, James scored 26 points, and had 11 rebounds and 13 assists. "I made a difficult decision to leave Cleveland but I understood what my future was about," James told FOX Sports following the game. "I knew we had a bright future [in Miami]."
James competed at his third Olympic Games in 2012, at the Summer Olympics in London, along with teammates Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Kobe Bryant, as well as several other top players. The U.S. basketball team took the gold medal—James's second consecutive Olympic gold.
During the 2012-13 season, James made NBA history yet again: On January 16, 2013, at age 28, he became the youngest player to score 20,000 points, succeeding Kobe Bryant of the Lakers—who accomplished this feat when he was 29—and becoming only the 38th player in NBA history to achieve this distinction. James made a jump shot the final seconds of the game, bringing his scoring total 20,001 and leading the Heat to a 92-75 victory over the Warriors.
Success followed the Heat to the end of the 2012-13 season: Following a hard-fought, six-game series against the Indiana Pacers to win the Eastern Conference, Miami outlasted the San Antonio Spurs in seven games to win its second consecutive NBA championship.

Return to Cavaliers

At the culmination of the 2013-14 season, Miami returned to the NBA Finals to face off against the Spurs again, this time losing to San Antonio after five games. In July of 2014, after opting out of his contract with the Heat and considering other teams, James announced that he would be returning to the Cavaliers.
Hampered by back and knee problems, James missed 13 of 82 regular-season games in 2014-15. However, he was as dominant as ever when healthy, averaging 25.3 points and 7.4 assists per game. James led the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals, becoming the first player in nearly 50 years to reach the championship round in five consecutive seasons. However, injuries to star teammates Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving damaged his hopes of claiming a third title, and the Cavaliers lost to the Golden State Warriors in six games.
The following year, the Cavs overcame the distraction of a midseason coaching change and breezed through the playoffs to earn a rematch with the Warriors, marking the sixth straight NBA Finals appearance for King James. In perhaps the crowning achievement of his career, he led his team back from a 3-1 deficit, scoring 41 points in both Games 5 and 6, before recording a triple double in Game 7 to give the Cavs their first championship in franchise history.
Voted Finals MVP, James said, "I came back to bring a championship to our city. I knew what I was capable of doing. I knew what I learned in the last couple years that I was gone, and I knew if I had to—when I came back—I knew I had the right ingredients and the right blueprint to help this franchise get back to a place that we've never been. That's what it was all about."

Personal Life

Outside of the NBA, James has worked to help others. He established the LeBron James Family Foundation in 2004, along his mother Gloria, to help out children and single-parent families in need. Among its many programs, the organization builds playgrounds in economically disadvantaged areas and hosts an annual bike-a-thon.

Cristiano Ronaldo Biography

Synopsis

Cristiano Ronaldo was born on February 5, 1985, in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. Manchester United paid £12 million to sign him in 2003—a record fee for a player of his age. In the 2004 FA Cup final, he scored Manchester's first three goals and helped them capture the championship. In 2008, he set a franchise record for goals scored. In 2009, Real Madrid paid a record $131 million for his services.

Early Life

Born Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro on February 5, 1985, in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, a small island off the western coast of the country, Ronaldo is the youngest of four children born to Maria Dolores dos Santos and Jose Dinis Aveiro. He was named after Ronald Reagan, one of his father's favorite actors.
Ronaldo grew up in a largely working class neighborhood in a small tin-roofed home that overlooked the ocean. His early life was shaped by hardship; his father, a gardener, often drank too much, and eventually died from kidney problems in 2005. To help keep the children fed, and maintain some financial stability, Ronaldo's mother worked as a cook and cleaning person.

Intro to Soccer

It was through his dad's work as an equipment manager at a boy's club that Ronaldo was first introduced to the game of soccer. By the time he was 10 years old, he was already recognized as a phenomenon—a kid who ate, slept and drank the game. "All he wanted to do as a boy was play football," his godfather, Fernao Sousa, recalled for British reporters, adding, "He loved the game so much he'd miss meals or escape out of his bedroom window with a ball when he was supposed to be doing his homework."
By his early teens, Ronaldo's talent and legend had grown considerably. After a stint with Nacional da liha da Madeira, he signed with Sporting Portugal in 2001. That same year, at the tender age of 16, Ronaldo turned heads with a mesmerizing performance against Manchester United, wowing even his opponents with his footwork and deft skill. He made such an impression that a number of United players asked their manager to try and sign the young player. It wasn't long before the club paid Ronaldo's team more than £12 million for his services - a record fee for a player of his age.

Success with Manchester United

Ronaldo did not disappoint the soccer world. He showed his promise early on in the 2004 FA Cup final, scoring the team's first three goals and helping them capture the championship. In 2008, a year after signing a five-year, £31 million contract, Ronaldo again justified his high salary when he put together one of the club's finest seasons in history, setting a franchise record for goals scored (42), and earning himself the FIFA World of the Year honor. In all, Ronaldo helped steer Manchester United to three premier league titles.
But Ronaldo's time in England was marred by his mother's 2007 struggle with breast cancer as well as his father's death from alcohol-related illness. The latter was especially hard for Ronaldo as the two had been close, and the young athlete had often pushed for his father to enter rehab and address his drinking. His father, however, never accepted the offer.

Real Madrid & National Victory

As lauded as Ronaldo was on the field for Manchester United, his commitment to the club came under constant question. Speculation swirled that he wanted to play elsewhere. So in 2009, when Spanish soccer club Real Madrid agreed to pay United a record $131 million for the chance to sign him, nobody was all that surprised to see Ronaldo leave United.
"I know that they are going to demand a lot of me to be successful at the club and I know that I'm going to have much more pressure than at Manchester United because I was there for many years," Ronaldo told reporters. "But it means a new challenge and is going to help me be the best footballer."
In addition to his FIFA World Player of the year award, Ronaldo has also won the coveted Ballon d'OR, the Golden Boot, and been named the UEFA Club Forward of the Year, among other honors during the course of his career.
On July 10, 2016, Ronaldo added another emotional victory to his accolades, leading Portugal to the European Championship final against France as his national team's captain. Although he was sidelined after suffering a knee injury 25 minutes into the match, Portugal went on to win the championship title 1-0, their first international trophy. Ronaldo's teammates said that he motivated them as team captain from the sidelines. "He gave us a lot of confidence and he said, 'Listen people, I'm sure we will win this Euro so stay together and fight for it,’” full-back Cedric Soares said after Portugal’s victory.
"This is one of the happiest moments in my career,” Ronaldo commented. ”I’ve always said I wanted to win a trophy with the national team and make history. And I did it. Thank God, things went well for us."

when is the optimal strategy is to throw a badminton match?

By Laura Albert McLay

I’ve been following the badminton scandal in the news. First, let me say that I never thought I’d hear the words “badminton” and “scandal” in the same sentence. I thought that this was one of those rare cheating events that sometimes happens. The evidence suggests that the optimal strategy may sometimes be to lose on purpose.
In previous Olympics, the entire set of badminton matches were in a tournament with knockout rounds. A team could apparently not chance their seed or path to gold. In this Olympics, there was a new preliminary pool round with the performance in the pool leading to seeds in the later single elimination tournament with 16 teams. This introduced a wrinkle to the optimal strategy. Now a team might want to think about how they could optimize their seed/path in the single elimination rounds. Obviously, introducing a path to the gold by doing something other than winning every possible match potentially invites trouble. However, the badminton rounds of play with a preliminary pool and later tournament is like what happens in volleyball, basketball, soccer, and other sports. I haven’t seen “lazy” players obviously throwing a match. Usually, winning more in the preliminary round only makes it easier later on.
Apparently, there is a huge incentive in badminton to throw matches. The badminton magazine Badzine conducted a study about throwing matches, since it is common knowledge that the Chinese throw matches. They found that matches were won by “walkovers” or early retirements in 20 of 99 (20%) of all-Chinese matches [link to article]. Walkovers/retirements occured in 5.3% of matches when non-Chinese athletes played their compatriots and in 0.74% of the matches between Chinese athletes and non-Chinese athletes. So the Chinese “throwing” rate is an outlier, which suggests that the Chinese badminton players are all in cahoots with each other. The Olympics scandal, however, included two Chinese teams, one Indonesian team, and one South Korea team.
Here is why the players’ strategy changed from winning all preliminary games to throwing a match:

The attempt to throw the two matches in the women’s doubles had it roots in a surprise result earlier in the day when the Chinese second seeds, Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei, were beaten by a Danish pair. The result meant that Yang and Xiaoli had to lose to avoid meeting their compatriots before a potential showdown in the final.
A similar desire to avoid the hot favourites seemed to have cross-infected the second match, between  South Korean third seeds Ha Jung-Eun and Kim Min-Jung and Indonesian pair Meiliana Juahari and Greysia Polii [link]

And yes, the cheating was so obvious that people in the audience booed the athletes’ lack of effort:

Lori Halford, 35, who had paid £40 along with her husband for tickets to the evening session, told The Independent: “It was immediately clear that something wasn’t right. The first shot went into the net, then the next shot went into the net. The next return went under the net. There was no speed or strength to their play. There was a complete contrast to the others playing in different games who were giving it everything they could.” [link]

Throwing a badminton match is not dissimilar to sumo wrestlers throwing matches, which was discussed in detail in Freakonomics.

How China fixes matches to remain badminton powerhouse

In the semifinal of the Badminton Asia Championship in China last week, Olympic Champion Lin Dan was injured during the morning training session and forfeited his match against compatriot Chen Jin. Chen went on to win the title, which made a considerable contribution to his ranking points.

The victory took Chen closer to his goal of breaking into the top-four in the world rankings before 3 May, a pre-requisite for him to qualify for the Olympics. According to the qualification rules, any country can field three singles players in the Olympics only if all three are in the top four in the world rankings after the qualification period ends on 31 April 2012.

Under normal circumstances, the incident could have been ignored as a stroke of good luck for the 2010 World Champion, who is still struggling to cement his berth in the forthcoming London Olympics.
But when such incidents involve two Chinese players the badminton fraternity cannot help but look at these developments with suspicion since the sport's powerhouse has been known to “fix” the result of such matches for a bigger goal.
The biggest of such controversies had broken out when China’s head coach Li Yongbo once publicly admitted that he asked Zhou Mi (former world number one) to throw her 2004 Athens Olympics semifinal against compatriot Zhang Ning since he felt that the latter was more likely to get the better of Dutchwoman Mia Audina who had already booked her final berth.
He had defended his decision saying Zhang had already won the first game in the semifinal and hence “as a patriot” he decided Zhou to take it easy and not try and win the match.
In the last couple of years, Lin Dan has forfeited his matches twice against Chen Long to allegedly keep him fresh for a crucial match against Malaysian world number one Lee Chong Wei. He also forfeited the final of the Singapore Open Super Series last year against Chen, which ultimately helped the latter to gain valuable ranking points.
In the 2011 Malaysia Open, there were quite a few walkovers in the all-Chinese encounters forcing the governing body, Badminton World Federation, to issue a warning to the coaching staff.
Then the bigger goal for the Chinese contingent was to earn the full quota of qualifiers for the World Championship. In the same tournament, Xin Liu forfeited her women’s singles quarterfinal against Jiang Yangjiao citing a toe injury. That move not only helped Jiang, but also helped their men’s doubles pair as they were already warmed up when their match, scheduled immediately afterwards, was called while their Korean opponents were in for a surprise.
For the last few years, former world and Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia has been petitioning the BWF to make stringent rules to curb these Chinese tactics, but the world body has expressed helplessness time and again since it cannot force any player to take the court and risk further injuries.
The other strategy the Chinese contingent employees in the run up to major events like the Olympics and World championship is to enter many new players into major tournaments to shield their top players from their challengers.
India’s Saina Nehwal got the taste of that game plan during the Badminton Asia Championship last week when she was shown the door by Asian junior champion Xiao Jia Chen in the second round.
The youngster had obviously come prepared with a game plan for Saina, while the Indian ace was completely clueless about the strengths and weaknesses of her opponent.
Saina has time and again said that it is difficult to keep up with the Chinese only because of the sheer number of players they have and their different game plans. “It is easy for them to prepare for me. But the other way round is very difficult.”
In the women’s category, the Chinese ensured that they have all the top-four spots secured when world number four Li Xuerui won the Asian title beating world champion and compatriot Wang Yihan. The badminton powerhouse will now have the choice to field any three players for London Olympics on the basis of their current form.
The Chinese are already geared up for a clean sweep of Olympic medals, it would be interesting to see who manages to break their stranglehold in London.

Badminton: China coach Li yongbo calls for calm after Rio blow

China's failure to defend three of its badminton titles at the Rio Games was a shock for a nation used to dominating the Olympic courts but head coach Li Yongbo called for calm amid a storm of criticism.
Four years after winning all five titles at London, China grabbed two gold medals and a bronze to top the medals table, but it was their lowest haul at an Olympics for 20 years.
With teams restricted to two entrants in the singles, down from three at London and previous Games, the badminton superpower had fewer chances to win medals.
However, the lack of a Chinese woman on the podium for both the singles and doubles was a major setback for a team that had built long dynasties in both events.
Li has been the face of Chinese badminton for over a decade and survived a number of controversies by delivering unprecedented results at global and Olympic tournaments.
But the 53-year-old has been lambasted online over the team's performance in Rio, with Chinese social media users demanding his resignation.
China will lose at least two of its Olympic gold medalists to retirement, with doubles veteran Fu Haifeng and twice singles champion Lin Dan playing their last Games.
Zhao Yunlei, who won mixed doubles gold at London and took bronze in Rio, is also tipped to quit before Tokyo in 2020.
Li said China had little to fear about the passing of the golden generation but conceded there would be more challenges as rival nations closed the gap.
"Sometimes you’re strong, sometimes you fall back," he told Reuters.
"Indonesia was once strong and Denmark, too. China's risen up but the champions eventually retire and the next generation comes up slowly.
"So there will be some difficulties. This is normal.
"But China will still have top players competing in future because we have a lot of juniors competing at high levels.
"After these Olympics, our next generation will be strong.

"For a country to maintain its excellence it definitely needs to emphasize systemic talent development and very good training systems. China has, so I am not worried about (the future)."
Indonesia, Spain and Japan won the other titles in a high-quality tournament that spread the medals far and wide.
"Badminton is developing on all sides," said Li.
"But there is no point judging everyone else’s progress, it’s a matter of concentrating on your own.

"It is fair to say we have more difficulties than before but that does not mean we are going to fall behind. It is just others are progressing, so we still need to work hard."
(Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)