LeBron James and the NBA's Power Elite

 

   On October 22nd, 2024, the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves faced each other in the NBA's first game of the season. This matchup in and of itself was nothing special, with neither basketball legend LeBron James or his son LeBron "Bronny" James Jr. putting up spectacular individual performances; that same game, Anthony Davis, their teammate at the time, scored more points and had more blocks, rebounds, and steals than both LeBron and Bronny combined. Yet, this marks the first time an NBA player and their child shared the court in all of the league's history. 

    LeBron James is arguably the most well-known basketball player of all time, a celebrity that needs no real introduction. Often one of two answers in the pointless 'greatest of all time' debate, his career has spanned decades. From the moment he was drafted first overall in 2003 (and even before then), LeBron has been a phenomenon. He's played on multiple teams, both larger and smaller markets, from Cleveland to Miami to Cleveland again and now LA. In the now twenty-three years LeBron has been playing, he's not only set records once thought impossible to break like the most points scored in a career or his staggering twenty-one All-NBA selections. He also has four league MVPs and four Finals MVPs, with a record of four championships out of the ten championship finals he's played. Nationally, he also holds three Olympic gold medals and has already been inducted into the basketball hall of fame while still playing. This resume passes the eye test when LeBron plays, as not only is he a competent scorer and passer, but an adaptable defender. Off the court, he has a net worth of over a billion dollars while still maintaining a global audience of millions. More than just being one of the most recognizable faces in sports, he's also become a staple in pop culture and has a level of status untouchable by most humans in existence. 

    In twentieth-century American theorist C. Wright Mills' work The Power Elite, he analyzed the structures of power in America. The US is defined by three institutional domains, those of "the economic, the political, and the military" (6); instead of being independent from one another, Mills determined each of these spheres was interwoven with the others. In the center of this overlap, a small group in power has somewhat of a monopoly over daily life; members of this exclusive collective "are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society" (4) due to each domain's ability to affect the others. Though seen as an enigma on the surface (which leads to conspiracy), Mills theorized the psychology and drives of those in the power elite. As a driver in social status, prestige is the main catalyst in launching one into the small group in power; when "power and prestige finally meet at the very peak" (10), the American social ladder has been fully climbed. This is all due to America's lack of a true lack of feudalism, which created democracy and its institutional domains. In process, prestige and wealth (which can be conceptually linked but are individually unique) both coexist in the same higher social class. This is historically different than other countries and their class structures, where only monarchs were set up to inhabit the role the power elite play in American society. 

    In and of itself, the NBA as an organization theoretically functions similarly to America and its institutional structure. In the NBA, the three institutional spheres are directly modeled in the power of the commissioner (political), a team's front office (military), and league shareholders and team owners (economic). It isn't often that this power elite is inhabited by its system's capital, the players. It's made up of individual team owners who reap the benefits of their team's net profit, those in charge of trades and policy, and the NBA commissioner; overall, the group is a minuscule fraction of those who keep the league running, from coaches to players to trainers to marketers and so on. LeBron has firmly placed himself into this small elite, to the point where he not only has control of his own player profile (which historically isn't possible by the players themselves) but to the teams he's on as well. The no-trade clause has only been written into contracts of players ten times across the NBA's history, with LeBron's being more or less a no-brainer; he's always had the ability to join any team he has desired, on his own accord, as seen in his televised "The Decision" television segment. More than that (and occasionally to the chagrin of a franchise's owners), LeBron has traditionally had access to the front office, or the people in charge of creating a team's roster. While requesting to have specific players added to his team isn't something the vast majority of players, even superstars, can even weigh in on, LeBron has gone as far as to have his own son drafted to his team. Bronny James was picked as the final pick of the second round of the 2024 NBA draft; he was drastically under-qualified skill-wise for the league, yet LeBron's position and prestige pushed the Lakers to converting their pick into another personal accolade on LeBron's already star-studded resume. This is all thanks to LeBron's level of prestige from playing the sport of basketball itself, to the point where the capital has ascended to part of the power elite as well. 

Works Cited: 

Mills, C. Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.

ESPN Internet Ventures. (2024, October 22). Lakers 110-103 Timberwolves (Oct 22, 2024) box score. ESPN. https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401704628

How, H. (2024). Minnesota Timberwolves v Los Angeles Lakers. Getty Images. Getty Images. Retrieved April 16, 2026, from https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lebron-james-and-bronny-james-of-the-los-angeles-lakers-on-news-photo/2180392115?adppopup=true.