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LeBron James Rocked Jason Sudeikis on the Court in SNL's "Read to Achieve" Sketch
There was blood on the basketball court in this classic Saturday Night Live sketch starring 2007 Host LeBron James.
LeBron James will compete in his fourth Olympics in Paris this summer where, at 39, he'll be the oldest U.S. men’s basketball Olympian ever. But back in 2007, James was doing something very different on NBC: Hosting the Season 33 premiere of Saturday Night Live, where he starred in the hilarious "Read to Achieve" sketch with then-cast members Jason Sudeikis and Bill Hader.
In the sketch, James — an avid charity supporter in real life — is filming a PSA for youth reading program. Hader plays Mike, the director of the commercial, while Sudeikis co-stars as Jess, a crew member tasked with simply passing a ball to James so the star forward can make a shot.
Sudeikis' hotheaded stagehand is oddly impatient with James — and clumsy, throwing the basketball too high the first time and hitting the athlete in the head after another try.
"He’s supposed to be a professional athlete, Mike! The guy gets paid a million bucks to catch a ball," crows Sudeikis's character.
"You threw it at my damn head, man," James replies.
"Look, the adults are talking here, okay? You’re 22, right? Go sit at the kid’s table and have a juice box," Jess shoots back, trying to assert his nonexistent superiority on the faux basketball court.
Things soon grow even more heated between the two, with the crew member at one point throwing a book at James instead of the ball. Jess challenges the Olympian to a one-on-one basketball game — but of course, James crushes him effortlessly, accidentally elbowing him in the face to cause a bloody nose in the process.
Things don't usually end well when it comes to basketball on SNL — just ask Jimmy Fallon and Mikey Day.
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LeBron James hosted SNL on September 29, 2007
King James' sole Saturday Night Live appearance was the episode he hosted amid his meteoric rise to NBA superstardom, with Musical Guest Kanye West. James was, as Sudeikis noted in the "Read to Achieve" sketch, only 22 years old at the time. Five years later, James would reunite with Hader onscreen in the Judd Apatow film Trainwreck with Amy Schumer, in which he also played himself.
James will be competing on the U.S. men's basketball team at the 2024 Paris Olympics. He made his Olympics debut at Athens in 2004. James has won two gold medals (Beijing 2008, London 2012) and a bronze at Athens. When asked by TODAY, why he decided to play in an another Olympics, James revealed it was "just timing."
“Timing’s everything, and I think — you know, at this point in my career, I still, I have a lot to give, and Team USA has given a lot to me, so I feel like it’s an opportunity for me to give back.”
