‘I hope I continue to make you proud’

LeBron James celebrates championship by calling mother  (Getty/NBA)
LeBron James celebrates championship by calling mother (Getty/NBA)

LeBron James celebrated the Los Angeles Lakers win at the 2020 NBA championship by FaceTiming his mother, Gloria James.

On Sunday, reporters captured the celebratory moment where James called his mother while lying down on the floor outside the Lakers’ locker room and smoking a cigar after winning his fourth title.

In the clip, the basketball star can be heard telling his mother: “I had to leave the locker room, they’re going crazy in there right now. I had to get away. I’m calling you, I love you.

The 35-year-old then tells his mother that she is the reason “why I’m able to even do this.”

“Everything that you have been through, everything that I had seen, there’s nothing that can stop me,” he continued. “This is nothing compared to s*** you had to go through. God is good, God is great.

“I just hope I continue to make you proud, Mom. I am nothing without you. You’re special. I love you so much.”

The emotional moment came after James won his fourth Finals MVP title after the Lakers won against the Miami Heat in Sunday’s game, with the sentimental clip prompting an outpouring of praise for the athlete on social media.

“I love the videos of this. Such a cool moment,” one person tweeted.

Another said: “This is so beautiful.”

This is not the first time James has been open about the close relationship he has with his mother, who raised him as a single mother after giving birth at age 16. In July, the basketball star revealed that quarantining amid the coronavirus pandemic at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, with the rest of the NBA had been the longest period he’d gone without seeing her.

“It’s the first time in my life that I went that long without seeing my mom,” he said during a press conference, adding that she was “the only thing that I really missed.”

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