Before leading his team to another easily forgettable double-digit win over an inferior foe, LeBron James made this game one to remember by making a young girl's dream come true.
In Milwaukee to face the Bucks, James met with Ebony Nettles-Bey, a high school basketball player from Wisconsin who is battling cancer. Ebony's teammates started a Twitter campaign, using the hashtag #LeBronMeetEbony, to try to get the attention of the girl's hero, and it worked.
Ebony's wish became a reality Saturday. She led the back-to-back defending champs out for pregame warmups and even shot around with James. After shootaround James signed a shoe for the high schooler.
Then Ebony stood with James for the national anthem.
"Basketball is a small part of our lives," James told reporters later. "The way that it can impact someone else's life, that puts it all in perspective. What she's going through every single day; the challenges she's facing every single day with the Stage 4 cancer that she has, she's the stronger one out of us two. She's unbelievable, and for me to be someone that her last wish is to meet me, that's a 'Wow' factor. It puts it all in perspective knowing I have that much influence and that much strength for someone to say that if I have one opportunity."
Looking back on the experience, Ebony was surprised by how normal her idol was.
"It was a conversation that you have like with an everyday person ... it was like, unexplainable," she said. "He didn't really say too much, just I couldn't leave until I make a shot."
Ebony, who was an all-conference player as a sophomore and made a verbal commitment to UW-Milwaukee before getting sick, wants to one day play in the WNBA.
