-
Dave McMenamin
BARELY A MONTH into his first season with the Miami Heat, LeBron James‘ supernova trajectory, from the No. 1 pick in 2003 to a Cinderella run to the 2007 Finals to two NBA MVPs, had stalled.
The Heat were hovering around .500, a far cry from the juggernaut James had infamously promised when he rattled off the bevy of titles they would win in announcing his and Chris Bosh’s arrival, forming a Big Three with Dwyane Wade that was supposed to turn the league on its axis.
But he wasn’t just losing. He was lonely. His then-girlfriend and now wife, Savannah, and their two boys, Bronny and Bryce, were still living in Cleveland, some 1,300 miles away. His jerseys were being burned across Northeast Ohio. For the first time in his career, he was a villain, a heel.
He was staying at the Four Seasons, but as swanky as his suite was, no thread count on the sheets or pristine view of Biscayne Bay would change the fact that James was living in a hotel, not a home.
His mind was spiraling. His decision just a few months earlier to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers, the franchise that drafted him as a teenager to play just 45 minutes from his hometown in Akron, Ohio already felt like the wrong one.
He picked up the phone and dialed someone he knew would answer — someone who for nearly a decade had done so: his longtime confidant, Randy Mims.
“I’m coming over,” James told him. “I need to talk to you.”
It was just after 3 in the morning.
Mims hardly had enough time to throw on clothes as James made the 10-minute drive from his hotel to Mims’ place in nearby Coconut Grove. When Mims emerged from his front door, he found a burgundy Bentley Arnage in the driveway. James, just 25 at the time, had parked himself on the hood. He was crying.
“I’m not sure I’m doing this right,” James said. “I’m not sure I made the right decision to come here.”
Mims approached him. He didn’t bring up how he’d moved away from his wife and family to Florida for a job with the Heat that hadn’t materialized. He didn’t mention being jarred from his sleep either. He offered encouragement, asked him questions.
He wasn’t talking to “The Chosen One.” He was consoling a friend, a kid who used to borrow Mims’ polo uniforms when he sold pagers at Cingular Wireless and wear them to St. Vincent-St. Mary to pass the high school’s dress code.
“You got this, man,” Mims told James. “We’re going to figure this whole thing out. I get it. It’s a little new for you.”
Mims knew exactly what to say.
“It was just a lot of s— that was just going on in my head,” James told ESPN of that night. “I was still young. … I was questioning myself. I know I probably startled the f— out of him at like three o’clock, four o’clock in the morning. I pulled up and I told him to come outside and I literally sat on the hood of my car. He came out and we just talked things through.”
Maverick Carter, who was a high school teammate of James’ and now heads up his entertainment company, Uninterrupted, says the late-night visit was a pivot point in James’ career.
“Those are massive moments when you can seek someone you admire, someone you appreciate their words, and someone who’s enough of a good human being, but a realist to help you realize, ‘OK, how do I handle this?'” Carter told ESPN. “We’ve all been through things in our life, and if you are around someone who gives bad advice or handles it wrong or thinks about themselves in those moments, it can go really bad for someone.”
James remembers that night — and agrees: “I needed him in that moment and he came through for me.”
Says Mims: “The rest is history. From there, he took off. We never had them conversations again.”
Fifteen years have passed. James has made it to nine more NBA Finals, including eight in a row from 2011 to 2018. He has won four championships, four Finals MVPs, two more league MVPs and passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. He turned 40 last month and was serenaded “Happy Birthday” by the four Los Angeles Lakers rookies, including his son, Bronny — the first father-son duo to share the court in the sport. He signed a lifetime deal with Nike in 2015, and his net worth swelled over $1 billion in 2022, according to Forbes.
And Mims has been there for all of it.
He’s the chief of staff, the hub connecting the various ventures in James’ vast portfolio, now in his third decade as the man behind The Man.
Damon Jones, James’ former teammate, calls Mims “the orchestrator.” He makes sure James has access to a strong Wi-Fi signal and has a constant supply of his favorite indulgence, chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream, when they travel. He carries a portable speaker to set the mood with music when James and their crew get a chance to relax in whatever corner of the world in which they find themselves. He coordinates and often attends the appointments that make it onto James’ schedule, maintaining relationships with C-suite executives and juggling demands from James’ innumerable brand partnerships.
While Carter and Rich Paul, James’ longtime friend who now acts as his agent and the CEO of Klutch Sports Group, have carved out public personas of their own, Mims has remained purposefully behind the scenes. As James’ career has surged, Mims has become one of the most important people in basketball, a do-it-all fixer who keeps the NBA’s biggest superstar on task.
“Listen, you can win with anybody. That’s not what separates you or people. It’s, who can you lose with? And in LeBron’s most vulnerable times, Randy’s not there trying to make it about him,” Paul said. “Randy’s not there feeding him bulls— information. He’s not there trying to take advantage of his vulnerability. He’s there to be a rock. He’s there to be a sounding board. He’s also there to give pushback when LeBron’s wrong.
“What person stays with the athlete for 22 years? Zero,” Paul added. “And what athlete stays relevant for 22 years? Not just relevant, at the top?
“Randy’s been his co-pilot for 22 years.”
GOOGLE RANDY MIMS and what populates identifies him as a 49-year-old “TV personality.”
But long before Mims came up with the idea for “The Shop,” an Emmy-winning sports and pop culture talk show in a barbershop-style setting, he was sitting in a real barber chair in Akron, getting a cut from his barber, Ricky Garrett.
Garrett’s brother, Eddie Jackson, was dating a woman in North Akron: Gloria James, whose son, LeBron, was a high school freshman at the time.
“We were having a small talk one day, and he’s like, ‘What are you doing tonight? … I’m going to see LeBron play,'” Mims recalled Garrett saying. “‘He’s playing basketball at St. V. He’s one of the best players in the city. Actually, in the country.’ I’m like, ‘Really?'”
Mims, then 25, was living back in his hometown of West Akron after studying marketing at the University of Akron. He didn’t finish his degree but still climbed the cellphone ladder, hopping from one provider to the next.
He joined Garrett for the game.
“Maverick was playing on the team, too,” Mims said. “And obviously they killed, they won. … That was the year they won the state championship together.”
Mims kept attending games, and through Jackson, got to know James. He’d take James out to eat — Outback Steakhouse was a staple — and a bond was formed.
Before James’ senior season, Jackson was convicted of mortgage and mail fraud and sentenced to three years in prison. (Jackson completed his sentence and lives in Ohio. He is no longer connected to James or his organization.)
Around the same time, Mims had gone through a breakup with his live-in girlfriend. Although he loved his parents, he didn’t want to move back to his childhood home.
Jackson, who had become a father figure in James’ life, went to Mims with a proposal.
“I’m about to go away,” Jackson said, according to Mims. “You can just stay at my house. The only stipulation is Bron will come and stay there, hang out with his buddies from time to time. Just make sure you keep an eye over him.”
Mims didn’t hesitate.
“Me and Randy were pretty much roommates my senior year of high school,” James said.
“He had the master bedroom,” Mims said of James, “and I had this little ass kid’s room.” Gloria lived nearby in government housing at the Spring Hill Apartments.
After the season, with the NBA draft only months away and the 18-year-old about to be flush with millions, James called a meeting. At Jackson’s dining room table, he gathered with family members, friends and a growing group of business associates and outlined a plan. He sat at the head of the table.
“Bron delegated who was going to be with him,” Mims said. “We had a couple people around that he wanted to get rid of, and I think he felt like having this meeting was to seal all the speculation of who was part of the team.”
Back at the table, James continued his directive. “This is how it’s going to go,” he said. “Randy’s going to be with me — every day.”
Mims was in — part of the inner circle.
“It was just a level of comfortability, trust,” James says now. “He paid attention to details. He was reliable when I needed him, when I needed things. So, I just felt that. I just felt that he would be perfect to start my journey in this league.”
In James’ rookie season, he went from sharing the same roof with Mims to sharing the same apartment building — Reserve Square in downtown Cleveland — with not only Mims, but Carter and Paul as well. James, Carter and Paul were on the 23rd floor, appropriately enough. Mims was on the 21st.
The partnership was set. Two years later, it was cemented when James, Mims, Carter and Paul created LRMR Ventures (named after LeBron, Randy, Maverick and Rich) to handle his marketing deals.
“It was a scary time because a lot of people were saying we weren’t qualified, we weren’t going to make it,” Mims said. “I remember little excerpts coming out. Someone said LeBron hiring his friends is like hiring a mechanic to do electrical work in your house.”
With James entrusting Mims and embarking on his NBA career with the loftiest of aspirations — to supplant his idol, Michael Jordan, as the greatest basketball player of all time — Mims sought counsel from the one person he knew would understand the monumental tasks to come: MJ’s go-to-guy, George Koehler.
“I was young and pulling at him,” Mims recalled “And it was like, ‘What can you give me, man? I just need [advice].’ Like, ‘You got Michael Jordan.'”
Koehler’s words served as a lasting lesson.
“It’s never about you, bro,” Koehler told him. “It’s never about you.”
AS JAMES’ CAREER began, Mims managed all of his basketball-centric needs. “Pregame meals, postgame meals, picking him up from practice,” Mims said. “General tasks.”
“It was very basic,” Paul said of the off-court itinerary Mims managed for James over the first half of his career. “It was: hotel, lobby, gambling in the room, restaurant, club.”
James had two corporate partners at the time, Nike and Coca-Cola, and Mims worked with both on a regular basis. As LRMR brought in new deals, it was on Mims to integrate the demands they required into James’ daily itinerary. “As LeBron grew, I had to grow too,” Mims said. “And the way I grew was making sure everything was efficiently run so that he looked good.”
He learned how commercial shoots worked, what brands wanted from James, and what he could do to smooth the process. “All that stuff happened really fast,” Mims said. “My job duties grew. Astronomically.”
Even when James would hire someone to take over one of Mims’ daily tasks — like a driver to shuttle James to and from practice — it was Mims’ job to interview candidates for the position. “Pretty much everybody has to indirectly deal with me,” Mims said.
And he maintained a daily direct line with James — fulfilling his requests as they came, and perhaps more importantly, anticipating them.
While he learned the job in Cleveland, it was his time in Miami that forced him to adapt even more.
When James was tipping off what remains to this day one of the most consequential basketball games of his career, Mims wasn’t even in the building. He was boarding a commercial flight at Boston Logan International Airport back to Miami.
It was Game 6 of the 2012 Eastern Conference finals. After flaming out in the 2011 NBA Finals and blowing a 2-1 series lead to the Dallas Mavericks, the Heat trailed the Boston Celtics 3-2 and needed to win on enemy parquet.
As Mims’ responsibilities to James increased as a business partner, the role he served nearly two years earlier in Coconut Grove remained just as vital.
“Maverick and Rich talked to me and were like, ‘If it doesn’t go our way, when he lands, [you’ll] be a familiar face to talk to,'” Mims said.
Mims had to take a commercial flight because he was not welcome on Miami’s private charter and wanted to ensure he’d be back in Miami before James arrived. Back in 2010, after Mims says he was being promised a job with the Heat, the same player-liaison gig he’d had with the Cavs, the offer was pulled.
Sources told ESPN that James’ camp thought the decision not to employ Mims at the time was a power move by Heat president Pat Riley, his way of letting the eight-year veteran know that the team operates a certain way, and that even a superstar like James would have to fall in line.
A Heat team source who worked for the organization in 2010 disputes that characterization, telling ESPN that it was actually the NBA that blocked Mims’ hire after Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, who had ripped James in a public letter after he’d left the Cavaliers, “made a huge stink about it.”
A league source told ESPN he did not recall the precise facts surrounding the situation.
As the plane took off, Mims knew where he was heading but not the reality that would be waiting for him.
“At that time, there’s no Wi-Fi on the plane,” Mims said. “So, I’m sitting in limbo the whole flight, like, what the hell’s going on?”
Three-and-a-half hours later, Mims walked off the jet bridge and joined several skycaps around a TV mounted at the end of the terminal. SportsCenter was on.
“I’m like, ‘Did we win?'” Mims said. “And one of the guys looks at me and goes, ‘Are you serious?’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ He’s like, ‘Man, LeBron was possessed, bro. He killed!'”
James had scored 45 points in 45 minutes and shot 19-for-26 from the field, with 15 rebounds and 5 assists to force a Game 7. It was a legacy-defining game for James against Boston’s vaunted Big Three of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, who had beaten him and Cleveland in 2010, prompting his move to Miami.
It was a memorable night for James — and an illustration of Mims’ role and life at the time. For years Mims stayed true to his mission — to stay behind the scenes — but it came at a cost.
“I struggled, personally, with health,” Mims said. “I was an athlete. And to stay consistent with Bron — this is going to sound really crazy — but I was a little afraid to work out. Because I didn’t want to get hurt and miss time. … I saw my friends that were my age and they’re tearing Achilles, they’re getting hernias. Can you imagine me doing my job on crutches? ‘Bron! Wait! Hold on! Grab my bag!'”
In 2013 in Miami, David Alexander, an athletic trainer who owned a gym where James sometimes trained, introduced Mims to Carlos Acevedo. Acevedo was a former associate of Tony Bosch, a biochemist now infamous for providing performance-enhancing drugs to athletes through his South Florida company, Biogenesis. Mims was looking to jump-start his fitness with the purchase of testosterone and a metabolism booster.
A decade later, ESPN published an investigation into Bosch’s crimes, and Mims’ connection with Alexander and Acevedo was mentioned in the story.
The story stated ESPN had been told by federal authorities that they found nothing to suggest Alexander or Mims provided any PEDs to any athletes. Still, Mims felt exposed, hurt that after nearly two decades of silent partnership, his name appeared in the headlines. That was the real sting.
“I prided myself,” Mims said, “in staying out of the way.”
WHEN JAMES RETURNED to Cleveland in 2014, Mims went with him, resuming his job with the Cavs as a player liaison.
It was not without reservations. Mims had been scarred by James’ departure in 2010, he said, disheartened by the ferocity of hatred that burned from the sports-obsessed city toward their fellow Northeast Ohio native.
“I’ll be honest, I was reluctant about going back to Cleveland,” Mims said. “I took it personal, and it wasn’t even me. But the jerseys being burnt, it was crazy going back home. … The letter. It just was, this was home and this is how you guys feel? The guy’s been here all his life.”
A year into their reunion, James and the Cavs were in a fragile state, despite having been to the Finals for the second time in franchise history.
Kevin Love had hurt his shoulder in the first round of the 2015 playoffs against Boston and was sidelined for the rest of the postseason, including the Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors. Now he was a free agent. Between Love, Kyrie Irving and James, it was Love who had made the most sacrifices in forming Cleveland’s new Big Three.
Love met with James poolside at The Peninsula Beverly Hills to discuss his impending decision.
“I don’t think you really know me,” Love told James. It had been a difficult season for Love, but Mims, he said, had made it easier.
“Since day one, we’ve always had a special relationship and bond,” Love said of Mims. “He likes to fly below the radar. So, that’s what I love about him. Because I’m the same way.”
Love’s connection to Mims gave him hope he could bridge the gap with James.
Back at the pool, Love turned to James. “Randy and I have this relationship,” Love told him. “Let’s get to know each other better.”
Love said his message was well received. James told Love he knew the power forward’s personality would eventually thrive in Cleveland.
Mims knows his boss’ blind spots and will intervene with one of James’ teammates if he thinks he can help find a common ground.
“It might be something really simple,” Mims said. “Like, ‘Every time I pass that guy the ball, he’s never ready!’ And I may wait a little while and indirectly get in a conversation with the person and be like, ‘What’s been going on at the house? What you been doing?’ And they’ll be like, ‘Man, my wife, man … Or, ‘We had a baby, the baby’s been up all night …’ And I’ll hear things that might be helpful. And I’ll say, ‘Bron, lighten up on him, man. His baby is sick,’ or this and that.”
Three days later, Love signed a five-year, $110 million contract to remain with the Cavs.
The next season, with the Cavs in crisis again after firing David Blatt 41 games in, new coach Tyronn Lue also turned to Mims.
“When I first took over, the locker room was in shambles,” Lue told ESPN. “Guys were going their own separate ways, and Randy was one of the guys that I talked to first. Just saying, ‘Hey, listen man, we got to get everybody on the same page and whatever you see or hear, it ain’t snitching, but let me know how I can make this environment better.’ And he told me step for step, what we needed to do and how guys needed to be treated, how guys needed to be talked to. And it was huge for me.”
Five months later, Lue led the Cavaliers to their first NBA championship in 2016.
Mims was vital to their run, James says.
“He’s been very instrumental to all of my championship ballclubs that I’ve been able to win with,” he said. “And I have four championships.”
After the Game 7 win in Oakland, Mims helped Cavs team leaders organize the parade, from the route it followed to placing players, coaches and their families on their respective floats.
Mims sat on the last one by himself, behind the scenes, surrounded by 1.3 million jubilant fans celebrating the city of Cleveland’s first title in 52 years.
ON A CLEAR, brisk Tuesday afternoon in late November, at a restaurant called Mowry & Cotton, a falconer trains a hawk to keep smaller birds from pecking at the plates of patio diners. Inside, Mims sits on a leather-backed chair at a broad, wooden table and handles request after request.
Upstairs in The Phoenecian hotel, James is napping before a game against the Phoenix Suns that night. Mims is staying there too, officially working for the Lakers as their executive administrator — player programs and logistics.
Another text pings. It’s from Dennis Schroder, a former Lakers guard who was recently traded from the Brooklyn Nets to the Golden State Warriors. His team is playing Phoenix after L.A., and he is looking for two tickets for the game that night. Courtside. Mims responds. He’s on it.
Halfway through the meal, former Arizona Cardinals All-Pro wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald spots Mims and approaches his table.
“I can still catch it,” Fitzgerald says, wrapping Mims in a hug.
“That’s all they need!” Mims beams back.
Mims’ son, Auston, is a football player. He redshirted his freshman year at the University of Oregon and plays offensive line. “How’s your son doing? Is he on the field?” Fitzgerald asks.
“He’s not on the field yet,” Mims responds. “We’re pushing. We’re pushing, but it’ll happen. He’s at the right place for sure.”
After they catch up, Fitzgerald heads toward the exit. But before he does, he makes an ask. “Tell LeBron to send me some shoes!”
Mims makes a note in his phone.
Minutes after Fitzgerald leaves, Justin Ishbia — the brother of Suns owner Mat Ishbia — approaches. He says he is interested in purchasing the Minnesota Twins and wants to line up some famous Minneapolis sports figures to be involved in the ownership group.
They start brainstorming: Justin Jefferson, Kevin Garnett, Cris Carter, Love, Dave Winfield, Joe Mauer, Randy Moss, Robert Smith. Mims says he will get Ishbia in touch with Garnett, or “Ticket” as he calls him. He and Garnett share a mutual close friend in Lue.
Mims is in his element, bringing people together, expanding the network. He is a plug, known to locate certain things from time to time.
“The amount of things that are on LeBron’s plate to deal with, I don’t know that everyone can truly appreciate what it is for those guys,” said Andy Elisburg, senior vice president of basketball operations and general manager for the Heat. “Not just the stars of the team, but those who are the stars and faces of the league. It is never ending. It really is. And Randy manages that, and does that at a very, very high level.”
On another Tuesday afternoon early in the Lakers’ season, James is on stage wielding a microphone. He’s filming a commercial for DraftKings with comedian Kevin Hart.
Hart rolls as soon as he arrives on the set, announcing, “Nobody look LeBron in the eye!” to the paid extras in the audience, eliciting a genuine cackle from the crowd.
The concept for the spot is simple: James tells rudimentary jokes that are met with hysterical howls from every person in the audience but one: Hart, who is beside himself that James’ silly punchlines are landing.
James nails the part, with Hart ably assuming the role as the indignant foil.
Off to the side of the stage, Mims, dressed in a plain white T-shirt, diamond tennis necklace, black Supreme hat and black cargo pants, sips on a chamomile tea.
For this shoot, Mims has coordinated with 14 different people — a barber, driver, chef, multiple masseuses, a stylist, a publicist, James’ house manager and security guards. All of them knew where to be and when.
“Big Rand is the connector,” Hart told ESPN. “Big Rand is the one that’s saying, ‘Hey, they’re going to come out, they’re going to come f— with us. We are all going to such and such. Let me make sure you all are good. Hey, I’m going to set y’all up.'”
Including, potentially, future Team USA teams.
Mims was in Paris when James won his third Olympic gold medal with USA Basketball. Grant Hill, the managing director of the USA men’s national team, met Mims — and came away with an idea.
“I get a sense, sort of watching his interaction with LeBron and having worked with LeBron for so long, there’s a reliability, maybe a dependability, a steady stability that he brings,” Hill told ESPN. “I think, in a way, he brought that for the entire team.”
Hill is already making plans to field another gold medal team in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
James assured Hill he wouldn’t be back. But perhaps Mims will be.
“[Hill] sent me a text message, ‘We would love to have you back,'” Mims said. “Then he was like, ‘If LeBron does it or not. You could help us.'”
Though James fantasizes about playing his last game and then jetting off to his place in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to disappear, Mims says it’ll never happen.
“Like he’s going to ride off into the sunset,” Mims says sarcastically. “He’s going to be losing his mind. He’ll be playing basketball games in the driveway.”
Mims knows his longtime companion won’t slow down too much. And Mims will still be there.
“My future is his future,” Mims said.
“S—, it’s still a lot of work to be done,” James confirmed. “Listen, it might not be the on-court stuff and dealing with the teams, but I got a lot of s— to get done.
“So he’s going to be there the whole way.”