LeBron James: NBA superstar's evolution from high school prodigy

It was another unscripted moment of genius, another masterful flourish from a man approaching 20 years at the very top of his game.

LeBron James picked up possession in the corner during a mid-January meeting with the Houston Rockets. He looked to shoot - a three-pointer. As he did so, his Los Angeles Lakers team-mate Dennis Schroder teased from the bench behind: "Bet you won't make it."

"To make a bet official you gotta look a man in the eye," James later said. And that's exactly what he did; releasing the ball on its arc towards the net before quickly turning to face up the wager, his back to the court as the net rippled and bedlam broke loose.

James, in his 18th NBA season, had turned 36 two weeks earlier. Yet he appears to be having more fun than ever, and is still inflicting misery on the rest of the league.

Here, former coaches, team-mates and opponents chart the rise of this remarkable player; from teenage prodigy to fully fledged superstar and beyond.

Their analysis helps frame the ways in which this unique sportsperson has evolved through the years to remain not only relevant and successful but ahead of the pack.

In the summer of 2003, James was putting in extra work before his rookie season. Aged only 18, he had long been regarded as basketball's next great hope.

He was the cover star of the prestigious Sports Illustrated magazine while still a junior in high school. For years it had been predicted he would be the number one pick in the 2003 NBA draft - and sure enough he was. Selected by his hometown team the Cleveland Cavaliers, rarely has a teenager carried such high expectations into their professional debut.

Throughout that summer, James travelled to the Cavaliers' practice facility - a 40-minute drive from where he grew up in Akron, Ohio - for intense one-to-one training with Bob Donewald Jnr, one of the team's assistant coaches.

After one session, coach and superstar-in-waiting chatted during a cool-down routine. "I wasn't great today," James said. "It wasn't a great workout."

"You were alright. It's been a long week," replied Donewald, who had pushed the teenager hard across consecutive days of gruelling work in preparation for the 82-game season. "LeBron, I just want you to be great. That's why I'm pushing you."

"I am great," James responded, a flat, serious expression washing over his face. "If you want me to be the greatest ever, I'm with that."

No-one was more aware of the future that had been written for him than James himself. No-one better appreciated the work required to fulfil that promise.

"Every cut, every shot, every move he made - you'd have thought it was a Game 7 finals, the intensity with which he went," Donewald re of those early one-to-one sessions. "I'm trying to crush this kid in a workout just to teach him a lesson, and he is bringing it and bringing it.

"Everybody was hard on him too - the players, head coach Paul Silas. They were friendly, but they weren't going to hand it to this kid, and he didn't want it handed to him."

James also understood the highest echelons of superstardom are only attained when the pageantry of elite sport is embraced; that you create your own myth before selling it to the world.

At half-time in a pre-season intra-squad scrimmage, some of the Cleveland players decided to do battle in an impromptu slam dunk contest. James watched from the sidelines while established players entertained the crowd with an array of athletic jams. But those who'd stuffed the arena to capacity were really there to see one man.

"He looks at me and grins ear to ear," Donewald says of the moment James decided to take centre stage. "He says, 'watch this'. I said, 'are you going to take over this place">