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LeBron James' NBA longevity is so unfathomable, sometimes it helps to examine his career through another lens. When Microsoft announced today that they were shutting down the game-changing internet communications platform Skype after 22 years, the mind's eye naturally wanders to other game-changers still going strong after 22 years — a list that narrows down pretty quickly to… just LeBron.
For you kids out there who take your numerous video and other internet-based chatting options for granted these days, let's harken back to a more quaint telecommunications age when the primary way to video conference with someone was through a computer program called Skype (and no, it wasn't even called an app yet).
The year was 2003 and a bright-eyed high-schooler from Akron who could barely fill out his oversized headband (and certainly wasn't wearing it to hide a receding hairline yet) named LeBron James was about to take the NBA by storm.
The commissioner was David Stern, Michael Jordan was unequivocally the GOAT (though we didn't have that acronym yet), and the only player who had a signature line of Air Jordan shoes was His Airness himself. (Carmelo Anthony was the first player other than Michael Jordan to get a signature Jordan Brand sneaker, and that didn't debut until November 2004).
Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley (by way of a group of Nordic entrepreneurs, per the NY Times) an equally game-changing computer program, Skype, was hitting the market. It had a dream to bring video conferencing and internet messaging to computers, and it succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
That is, until WhatsApp, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and a slew of other tech apps with the same dream came along and made Skype obsolete. Yet despite LeBron having numerous 2.0 wannabe imitators as well, somehow King James is still here in the NBA with no signs of slowing down.
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Consider this statement about the Skype shut down from Microsoft's president of collaborative apps and platforms Jeff Teper: “Skype has been an integral part of shaping modern communications and supporting countless meaningful moments, and we are honored to have been part of the journey.”
You could literally replace the word ‘Skype' with ‘LeBron', and ‘communications' with ‘basketball' and the quote would still be true.
And there is another similarity between Skype and LeBron — the thing that put them both out of work this summer is Teams.
In LeBron's case, that team would be the surging Minnesota Timberwolves. In Skype's case, it's the Teams that refers to Microsoft's video conferencing and workspace app that has boxed out Skype for market dominance under the same corporate umbrella the past few years.
No superstar will ever be able to box out LeBron James' impact in the NBA. However, there are certainly plenty of young stars to whom LeBron will have to explain what Skype was.
