Video: Lakers' LeBron James Reveals 3 Qualities That Make a Great Basketball Player

If you've ever wondered what it takes to be a great basketball player, LeBron James is here to provide the answer.

On the premiere episode of the Mind the Game podcast (starts at 9:30 mark), James outlined the three qualities that make a player great on the court beyond just natural talent and skill set.

The first quality James cited is knowing and understanding the "history of the game" and the legends of the sport who "paved the way" for current players to have "the ability to actually live out your dream."

James specifically cited Bill Russell as someone who was dominant on the court while also taking an active role in the Civil Rights movement.

The second quality James mentioned is discipline, which he described as a term that gets "loosely" thrown around:

"But you have to have a discipline to sometimes—you have to sacrifice loved ones in order to be great because they don't understand. And that's okay, they don't understand what it means to, like, I am getting up every single day at 5 or 6 a.m., and when I get home after everyone leaves the gym, I'm gonna take a nap, so now you're sacrificing your loved ones because you're not spending time with them. And when I wake up, I'm probably gonna train again, and then I'm gonna have dinner, and then I'm going to bed. And I'm gonna do that every single day, for a long period of time."

The final quality needed to make a great basketball player, according to James, is making sure you have a love for the game that goes beyond what happens on the court.

"I'm not just talking about wins and losses," he said. "I'm talking about do you really love the process of the game, and everything that happens before the referee" tosses the ball in the air for the opening tipoff.

James called playing games "the easy part" of the process, but it's "who has the love of the game when nobody is there" to provide all the pomp and circumstance.

All of these qualities have certainly served James well throughout his NBA career. The Los Angeles Lakers superstar is the league's all-time leader in points scored and the only player named to the All-Star team 20 times.

Of course, it takes a world of talent to make it to the NBA. Being able to stick in the league as long as James has, let alone playing as well as he has this long into his career is a testament to his follow the qualities he cited that were almost certainly learned over the past 21 years.