CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Before LeBron James opened up one of the most anticipated training camps of his celebrated career, there was a phone call he wanted to make.
James might have been preparing for his return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, but he knew that some 2,400 miles away Kobe Bryant was preparing to make a return of his own -- back to NBA action after playing just six games last season because of a torn Achilles in his right leg and a fractured bone in his left knee.
"I love Kobe," James said Friday before the Cavs hosted the Dallas Mavericks. "I love his competitive nature. I love competing against him. I talked to him before the season just to say it's great to have him back. Like I said about [Kevin] Durant and a couple of guys, our league doesn't seem right with certain guys not in uniform."
Bryant has shown glimpses of the player he was before those injuries already, averaging 15.3 points, 4.3 assists and 2.0 steals in just 24 minutes per game in four preseason contests.
It hasn't been a triumphant return thus far, however, as the Lakers are 1-3 in their exhibition schedule. They dropped their past two games by an average of 37 points. And despite Bryant's positive production, he is shooting just 39 percent from the field.
"I know that he doesn't enjoy the rebuilding phase, especially at this point in his career," James said. "But one thing about him -- he's going to give it his championship effort every night, and you have to understand that when you're competing against him."
James, who turns 30 in December and is beginning his 12th season, was asked if Bryant's starting his 19th season at the ripe old age of 36 has made James wonder how long his own career will last.
"I haven't thought about that, but I know my career will get to that point at some time where Kobe is today, where Kevin Garnett is today," James said, "where a lot of the songs that you listen to, a lot of the guys in the locker room have no idea what you're talking about. It's coming."
His résumé through his first dozen years in the league is well documented: All-Star nods galore, a rookie of the year award, four MVP trophies, five trips to the Finals and two championship rings. What will people think of James when he's approaching two decades in the league like Bryant is?
"Hopefully, when I'm here playing this game and when I'm done, I left an impression on people that watched the game, on my teammates that I played with, on the organizations I played for -- obviously, just being two, here and Miami," James said. "And all the kids that looked up to me while I played the game, hopefully I can leave a mark in that fashion. As far as what I'm going to do personally when I'm done, I don't know. The sky will probably be the limit on what I can do. Obviously, it will never be as exciting as this: putting on a uniform, going out and playing in front of 20,000 fans. You can never get that feeling back. I'm not worried about what I'm going to do personally. The mark that I leave on this game when I'm done will be that I played as hard as I could, I was a great teammate and I wanted to win every single night. Everything else will take care of itself."
Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, who beat James and the Miami Heat in the 2011 Finals in six games, was asked to consider James' place in the history of the game.
"He could end up being the very best, we'll just have to see," Carlisle said. "A lot of that's yet to be written. He's top five [all time] for sure, if you're asking my opinion."
The league's all-time greats are usually compared against one another based on how many championships they collected in their era. When James announced he was coming back to Cleveland in an essay co-written with Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins (an essay he claimed Friday that he has never taken the time to read because it would be "weird," incidentally), he set the bar low in that department: "My goal is still to win as many titles as possible, no question. But what's most important for me is bringing one trophy back to Northeast Ohio."
That was in July.
As the Cavs ready to tip off the season later this month, they now boast a roster that includes Kevin Love, Shawn Marion and Mike Miller -- three veteran pieces who weren't in Cleveland when James agreed to come back. Maybe multiple championships should be the adjusted expectation for this group.
"If you seen by the words that I spoke [in Sports Illustrated], I didn't envision our team being like this right off the bat," James said. "I did sacrifice the right-now for the future, but it's funny, it's not the team [roster that dictated his decision]. Obviously, the guys that were here already [were a factor], but the team was a small thing with me coming back. It had nothing to do with the team. It was more about these fans and the city and people here and the people that watched me grow from when I first picked up a basketball at age 8 to where I am today at age 29, so, the team didn't mean much. I felt like with me coming, we could hopefully add some pieces. Obviously, that happened quicker than I thought. But we're here now."
No matter what happens in this second go-round with the Cavs for James, he said that Finals loss to Carlisle's Mavs changed him and he "stopped caring what other people think."
"I stopped watching the TV and the people, the so-called experts, listening and looking at social media and all that crap," James said. "I just stopped caring. At the end of the day, one of my favorite quotes of all time is Theodore Roosevelt's, called 'the man in the arena' [from his 1910 speech, "Citizenship in a Republic"]. A lot of people criticize what we do as athletes or criticize the person in the arena, when they never step foot in it. They've never had an opportunity to actually go out there and play, so they don't really know what it takes."
Bryant, on the other end of that recent phone call, could certainly relate.