By Eastern Standard Time, LeBron James was up super early on Friday. Like, before, maybe, seven o’clock. He even mentions the lack of a sun, which for Cleveland, Ohio on Friday rose at 7:17 a.m. EST. To wake before sunrise on a Friday in September is mildly surprising because teams are only allowed to meet up at training camps after 11 a.m. on Sept. 28, which is this Monday. (Some teams — the Magic, Celtics, Hornets and Clippers — are doing so today.)
So, it seems James was getting a jump-start on said training, and he wants us to know it.
“Up early, man. It’s time to go get that work,” he tells us before launching into a sentence whose syntax has us flummoxed, but basically boils down to: He’s always working.
He’s LeBron James, the greatest basketball player in the world right now, so of course he’s always working. He’s probably been working since June 17, the day after Golden State won Game 6. This Instagram post is just a reminder of that fact to his fans and his detractors. It’s also led to our own stream-of-consciousness moment of yearning that’s like Nick Carraway’s striving for sobriety after that time he got sloshed in the love nest of Tom and concubine Myrtle.
Miss you, basketball. Miss you so much. We’re getting tired of trolling players’ Instagram and Twitter accounts, instead of gorging ourselves on game tape. Basketball is what we wanna write about. Basketball is what we want to watch. Basketball is how we make our living. Basketball is also how NBA players make their living. Basketball has been gone too long. Miss you, basketball.
Basketball also gets the bookended anaphora steez.
