How Will LeBron James Make His Mark?

He was named Eastern Conference player of the month in March and became the first player to ever win player of the week honors in three consecutive weeks. "The level he's playing at now, I don't know if anyone is even close," said Cavaliers General Manager Danny Ferry, who hopes to sign James to a five-year contract extension this summer. "It's different now. His will has taken over the last two months. He says 'I'm not quitting. We're going to get this game.' He's really been driven in that regard and it's obviously had an effect on our team."

That will was on display in New Jersey on April 8, when James scored 18 fourth-quarter points and provided one of the best highlights of the season. Trailing by three in the final minute, James picked up a loose ball from Vince Carter and sprinted down the court, creating some open space in transition before he met a road block. Nets forward Cliff Robinson reached in and hacked James while teammate Jason Kidd placed his hand on the ball and pushed down. But in a remarkable display of strength, James jumped into the air, broke free of Robinson and Kidd, and spun a layup off the glass that went in.

James sank the free throw to complete the three-point play and tie the game. Kidd called it "an MVP play." Brown said, "He was like a linebacker let loose." The shot crushed the Nets, who were on a 14-game winning streak, and helped the Cavaliers clinch home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs with a 108-102 victory. "He has developed the inner strength, the hunger, a little meanness, which you have to have in order to be great," said former Cleveland coach Paul Silas, who coached James his first two seasons in the league.

Silas has been impressed with James's progression in his third season, but said James has made his greatest leap in terms of leadership. "It's his ballclub now and everybody knows it," Silas said. "He was so young when he first came in, he didn't really understand what leadership meant. Of course, he had not really done anything in the pros, so veterans were real reluctant to listen to what he was saying, even when he was right on the money."

James recently admitted that when he first entered the league, he deferred to Ricky Davis and Zydrunas Ilgauskas and kept his mouth shut. He has been much more vocal this season and grown more comfortable in the role of team leader. "I don't know when it happened, but right now, it's my team," James said, then looked around the cramped visiting locker room at the Palace of Auburn Hills and found no dissenters.

With the Cavaliers on pace to win 50 games despite former Wizard Larry Hughes, Cleveland's big offseason acquisition, missing 45 games with a broken finger, Brown said there is no doubt in his mind that James is the most valuable player of the league. "You take the second-best player away from any team and you ask yourself if that team is going to be in position to win 50 games. You'd say, 'No,' " Brown said. "That's just LeBron getting it done. He's been terrific."

Already the youngest MVP of the all-star game, James was asked what being considered for MVP meant to him. "Nothing," he said.

The playoffs mean more.