LeBron James Jokes He Might Have 'Pulled an Eli Manning' if Grizzlies Won 2003 NBA Draft Lottery

It turns out we might have seen LeBron James play a year of college basketball if the 2003 NBA draft lottery had played out differently.

Appearing on the Bob Does Sports YouTube show (starts at 11:15 mark), James joked that he "might have pulled an Eli Manning" and not shown up if the Memphis Grizzlies had won the lottery when he was coming out of high school.

Manning famously made it known prior to the 2004 NFL draft that he didn't want to play for the then-San Diego Chargers, who owned the No. 1 overall pick. He later explained the decision was due to concerns about their organization at the time.

The Chargers still took Manning with the top pick, but he was traded during the draft to the New York Giants for Philip Rivers (the No. 4 pick that year) and two future draft picks.

James' rationale didn't seem to have anything to do with the state of the Grizzlies' organization so much as the lack of things to do in Memphis, even urging the franchise to move to Nashville.

Memphis had the sixth-best lottery odds in 2003 after finishing 28-54 the previous season, but moved up four spots to No. 2 behind the Cleveland Cavaliers.

That was still in the era of the lottery when the odds weren't flat, so the Cavs and Denver Nuggets had the best chance to win the top pick (22.5 percent) because they finished tied for the NBA's worst record. The Toronto Raptors were third (15.7 percent), followed by the Miami Heat (12.0 percent).

The Grizzlies were the only team in the lottery that year to move up. However, because of a 1997 trade for Otis Thorpe with the Detroit Pistons, the Grizzlies sent their pick that year to Detroit.

Terms of the deal stipulated that if their pick fell between two and 18 anytime between 1998 and 2003, the Grizzlies had the right to convey the selection to Detroit to fulfill the trade.

Since the Grizzlies kept deferring the pick, it finally conveyed in the final year it was due. It would have been top-one protected in 2003 had they won the lottery.

Things played out so that James got start his NBA career close to his hometown of Akron with the Cavs in a draft where four of the first five picks turned into Hall-of-Famers or future Hall-of-Famers since James is still playing.

The other Hall-of-Fame picks that year were Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, with the lone outlier behind the Pistons' selection of Darko Miličić at No. 2.