THE FAX LAID out a grandiose plan.
Jeremy Treatman, a former high school assistant coach in the Philadelphia suburbs who was running a burgeoning company that staged big-time basketball events between the game's future stars, had just sent a message to Dru Joyce II, the new coach at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, the school famously led by one of the most highly touted prep prospects in the history of the sport.
It was the summer of 2002.
Six months after a then-17-year-old LeBron James had appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated accompanied by the headline, "The Chosen One," Treatman was pitching Joyce on choosing him to build James' hype even more.
How would you like to play at the Palestra in Philly? How would you like to play Madison Square Garden against Sebastian Telfair? How would you like to play at Ohio State? How would you like to play at University of Dayton? How would you like to play in the Dean Dome in North Carolina?
In Philly parlance, Treatman had him at, "Yo."
"He calls me the next day and he says, 'You can get us to play at the Palestra?!'" Treatman told ESPN. "I go, 'Absolutely! Of course.' He goes, 'I've always dreamed of playing in the Palestra. I've heard about this place my whole life.
"We're in.'"
There was only one problem.
"I was completely bluffing about the Palestra," Treatman said. "I hadn't talked to anybody."
NAMED BY UNIVERSITY of Pennsylvania professor William N. Bates, evoking the Greek term "palæstra" that describes an athletic competition surrounded by an audience, the Palestra was the home for Penn's basketball, volleyball and wrestling teams.
But its reputation as a hoops haven spread far beyond the corner of S. 33rd St. and Walnut St. on the Quakers' campus.
With its red brick facade, its ceiling suspended by a spine of steel arches and bleachers that practically bleed right onto the maple hardwood playing surface, the Palestra became more than just a gymnasium, earning the nickname "The Cathedral of College Basketball."
It was for decades the home for the famed round-robin Big Five schedule between Philadelphia's college basketball teams and has hosted more NCAA men's basketball games than any other arena in the country.
"Brad Stevens and I, when I worked for him in Boston, we would go back and forth about Hinkle or the Palestra, Hinkle or the Palestra," Detroit Pistons assistant coach Jerome Allen told ESPN.
Allen, a Penn alum, took umbrage with his old boss' preference for Butler University's bandbox.
"[The Palestra] was built in 1926," Allen continued. "The first college game was played in '27. Cameron Indoor Stadium [at Duke University] was modeled after it. And everybody played in it: high school, college. It's a who's who for college basketball."
(The NBA might have sided with Stevens by opting to have the NBA Cup final at Hinkle Fieldhouse this December. But Evan Wasch, the NBA's executive vice president of basketball strategy and growth, recently said the Palestra is "on the list" for consideration to host a future cup championship.)
It was the perfect stage, Treatman thought, to host James, whom he first saw play in person at the Slam Dunk to the Beach tournament in Lewes, Delaware, in December 2001.
"I saw him make an under-the-basket reverse layup that reminded me of Dr. J's move over Mark Landsberger," Treatman said, referring to Julius Erving's iconic bucket for the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 4 of the 1980 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Treatman pulled out his cellphone.
With the image of a soaring James still fresh in his mind, he dialed Gregg Downer, the head coach at Lower Merion High School, where Treatman used to work as an assistant.
"I called Downer and I said, 'I can't believe what I'm saying, but I think I just saw somebody who might be better than Kobe [Bryant],'" Treatman recalled.
While Joyce prepared his team for James' senior season, Treatman began to make good on his bluff.
He called Peggy Kowalski, the Palestra's box office manager, to get her on board, telling her he was "almost positive" the event would sell out.
Now he just needed an opponent. He wanted to keep it local.
"My idea was not to have them play the best team [in the country], but the best Philly team," Treatman said.
He settled on Strawberry Mansion, a Philadelphia Public League school whose star, 6-foot-2 guard Maureece Rice, was threatening to break the high school scoring record of the man responsible for the most famous 100-point game in history: Wilt Chamberlain.
The game was set: St. Vincent-St. Mary vs. Strawberry Mansion. James vs. Rice. Dec. 22, 2002, at the Palestra.
"To have Bron there," Allen said, "everybody talked about the battle between him and Reece Rice."
FIVE YEARS BEFORE Aron Cohen scored 14 points off the bench to help lift Penn over the Princeton Tigers as a junior guard, he was a high school sophomore sitting in the stands, soaking in the most raucous basketball environment he ever experienced -- before or since.
"I just remember the Palestra being so packed," Cohen told ESPN. "I mean, when I played at Penn, we played against Carolina when they were No. 1 in the country.
"And from what I remember, I felt like that game against LeBron was more packed. ... Just hearing about him, seeing him in SLAM magazine, it was like, 'Wow, this guy is in another world.' You have to see him. You can't miss it if you're a basketball fan."
Former Detroit Pistons guard Richard Hamilton, whose Coatesville, Pennsylvania, high school team lost to Bryant and Lower Merion in the district playoffs at the Palestra in 1996, distinctly remembers the landmark game.
"The Palestra is a big deal for us. That was always the mecca of Philadelphia for us," Hamilton told ESPN. "So when LeBron James comes there ... that was a moment for Philadelphia. Because it was before social media. Nobody got an opportunity to see him. So when you see this man-child coming to the arena with the type of aura that came with it, it was something that my friends and my family talk about to this day."
Treatman delivered on his sellout prognostication -- and then some.
"I had random people coming up to my office on the sixth floor at 1420 Walnut St., knocking on the door: 'You selling tickets? You selling tickets?'" Treatman said. "And I was. I was selling tickets. It was a one-man ticket office. It was hysterical. The phone calls were just nonstop. And the game, they tell me there were more people in the Palestra that night than any time in history."
Among the attendees were current New York Knicks president of basketball operations Leon Rose, a then-influential sports agent who eventually signed James as a client. William Wesley, one of the sport's biggest power brokers, made an appearance. Cantankerous (and ubiquitous) Philadelphia sports radio personality Howard Eskin was there. A handful of Eagles players.
Sixers star Allen Iverson -- just a year removed from winning MVP and taking Philadelphia all the way to the Finals against Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and the Lakers -- was in the stands.
But for James' team -- that had lost high-profile games the season before against other prominent foes in Oak Hill Academy (Virigina) and Amityville (New York) -- it was still a business trip.
"I always speak about the abnormal becoming normal for us," said Romeo Travis, one of James' high school teammates who went on to become the University of Akron's all-time blocked shots leader before a long pro career overseas.
"So we knew Iverson was coming, but it wasn't like, 'Oh my god, we got to play good for Iverson.' It was just like, 'OK.' It wasn't disrespectful or anything, because Iverson was still the man at that time, but it was just like, Shaq had just come to see us play."
James' team was 6-0 to start the season, including a revenge 20-point victory over Oak Hill 10 days before, and was ranked No. 9 in the country, according to USA Today.
They smashed Strawberry Mansion.
SVSM went up 36-15 in the first half, using a full-court press that the home team couldn't handle.
"The game was pretty much over pretty quickly," Cohen said. "St. Mary's was just way better. And LeBron had [an] early dunk and just set the whole place off, like, 'Ooh.'"
Rice came into the game needing 80 points to break Chamberlain's Philadelphia high school scoring record of 2,252 points.
He had zero at the break on 0-for-6 shooting.
"The fans were on the floor talking crazy like, 'Yo, y'all stink! [Coming from] these cornfields [in Ohio]' and all that stuff," Travis remembered. "It was really cool, though. That was my favorite part about the experience, was the fans."
Treatman, who now admits he "let in at least 150 extra people" beyond the 8,700-person Palestra capacity, started to get antsy.
This wasn't what the proud Philly crowd came -- and paid -- to see.
"It got really raunchy," Treatman said. "Gloria James got up and riled up the crowd. I thought there was going to be a riot. It was getting a little ugly in there."
That's when LeBron James, nearly 25 years before signing with the Sixers and sending the city into another frenzy as a 41-year-old, won over Philly for the first time.
THE SCORE HAD swelled to 65-25 in his team's favor after three quarters when James adjusted the game plan -- for both teams.
When Rice hit a 3 early in the fourth quarter for just his second made basket of the night, James called for a clearout on Rice and pulled up to answer with a 3 of his own.
Rice brought the ball up the floor and James stayed on him. Then Rice called for a clearout, too, feeling the juice of their back-and-forth.
When Rice reached the wing, just above the 3-point line, he crossed his dribble left to right. James took a step backward, anticipating a drive, and both sneakers slipped underneath him.
Rice crossed back through his legs, right to left, and with James scrambling to get back up from the floor, fired up another 3.
He airballed the shot, but the mano-a-mano matchup was exactly what the fans had paid to see.
Possession by possession, the Palestra's walls pulsated with their every move.
"I've never heard a place louder than that ... ever," Cohen said.
James came back down the court and answered with another 3.
"This is when I realized LeBron James was a brilliant young man ... he noticed what was going on," Treatman said. "He felt the buzz, he felt the tension, and he called Maureece Rice over during live game action. He waved eight people away and they played one-on-one for four minutes.
"They went up and down. Nobody else touched the ball for four minutes, and it was the most brilliant, incredible thing I've ever seen."
Where Treatman saw showmanship, Travis saw a competitive zeal, the kind that has sustained his childhood friend through an NBA career in its 24th season.
"How he became who he became is he didn't duck anybody," Travis said. "Anybody that said they were somebody, you had to show him proof. And Maureece Rice, even though they played different positions, they were saying he was one of the best in the country. OK, you're going to have to show and prove that. And you're going to have to come, and even if the game's over, you're going to have to show me something."
James finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and seven assists.
Rice, thanks to the late surge, ended up scoring 13. St. Vincent-St. Mary went on to win 85-47.
"Growing up and being a historian and reading stories about the Palestra ... for us to go there my senior year, being from Akron, I was like, 'Oh, man, I'm in the building with some of the greatest that's ever played," James recalled on a recent episode of his podcast, "Mind the Game," with co-host Steve Nash.
"It just had an aura about it, when I played there. It was fun."
Nash asked James what stood out from his memories about the game all these years later: Iverson in the crowd and the name of his fourth-quarter rival in that packed gym in Philly, James said.
"We were playing the No. 1 player in Pennsylvania, Maureece Rice," James added. "I'm reading all this stuff about Wilt and the history of the game, and we're traveling to Philadelphia. ... It was like, 'Oh shoot, we better have our shoes [tied] tight and we better be ready to go.'"
Rice is 42 now, about six months older than James. He rarely posts anything about his basketball career on his Instagram account. But scroll down to 2021 and the second slide of a post showing an adolescent Rice cheesing for the camera while wearing a white No. 14 Charles Barkley USA Basketball jersey is a grainy clip of James talking about their showdown.
"I respect Maureece a lot. He's one of the great players I've ever played against. I'm confident in him and I hope he keeps working. If he keeps working, he'll be a great player."
Rice went on to play four years for George Washington University and spent a week on the Sixers' training camp roster in 2008 before continuing his career in the G League and abroad.
James, in his first season in Philadelphia, has helped lead the Sixers to an 8-1 start, hoping to add to the four championships on his résumé before retiring.
Cohen, who's fighting cancer, still plays pickup games at Penn on Saturday mornings. Watching James play basketball in Philadelphia gives him an escape just like it did when he was a high school kid.
"I'm still in shock," Cohen said. "I'm like, 'LeBron James is a Sixer.' It's still surreal to me. ... I mean, for me personally, it's literally one of the most exciting, cool things to do in my life right now, is to just watch him and be a part of just the hoopla of knowing he's on our team."
Travis spent time this summer golfing and hanging out with James and some of their high school teammates. He'll go see James and the Sixers play in person when Philadelphia rolls through Cleveland and Detroit this season -- easy car rides from his Ohio home.
He would have seen him a lot more often had James signed with the Cavaliers, but he doesn't hold it against him.
"I was confused, but I understood. He wanted to win," Travis said. "And I understand that, that he just wants to win and whatever it takes. I understand that completely and respect it. ... One of the great things about him is he does it his way."
Treatman organized another showcase event featuring St. Vincent-St. Mary 17 years later in Columbus, Ohio, with James' alma mater facing Sierra Canyon High School, where James' son Bronny played.
James squeezed in a visit to watch his son play in the game during a Lakers off day.
It provided some full-circle nostalgia for Treatman, but even he says it wasn't the same as that December day in Philadelphia more than two decades ago.
"It was something you've never seen before," he said. " [And] you've never seen again."