This reminds me of how many chess grandmasters can easily recall and recite and visualize every move in a game from years past. I think James deserves a little more credit than just being on par with chess GMs: to memorize something so complex as a basketball game without even attempting to commit it to memory speaks to his extraordinary intelligence.
You probably already know this, but of course the companion trivia there is that chess masters' incredible recall for board positions only works for realistic layouts - when tested on randomly placed pieces, masters apparently remember them no better than beginners.
If basketball is analogous, one could suppose that (A) there may not be anything special about LeBron's memory per se - e.g. he might remember the plays in a cricket match as poorly as anyone else - and (B) it argues that on the court LeBron is thinking out the game, and the implications of each exchange, in a way comparable to how chess masters think out moves (and he probably puts similar mental effort into the other pursuits the article describes).
I have heard, though no citations, a psychologist or two on podcasts say that memories as we commonly understand them are reconstructions from fragments and snapshots.
If one accepts that hypothesis then it would make sense that you can reconstruct more accurately things that behave according to a fixed and small set of rules that you understand thoroughly and intuitively.
*small relative to the universe of rules outside of things like chess and basketball.
This is presumably because the chess master understands the position. I see three pawns, a king, a rook, and a knight. The chess master sees a castled king. I see 30 pieces all over the board. The master sees the Sicilian Dragon Harrington-Glek variation. I have no idea what happened next. I see eight candidate moves. The master sees three but knows that only one will make this particular opponent uncomfortable. With this level of understanding, it is way easier for the master to remember the game.
While true, there are also stories about LeBron having remarkable memory for non-basketball-related details, like remembering the color of the shirt a journalist was wearing the first time they met several years ago.
Steve Kerr said it's common for players at the top, said Draymond was the same way. I imagine Jordan as well.
Did LeBron’s memory of the fourth quarter surprise you?
Kerr: “Not for a great player. I think great players remember everything. It’s like a quarterback.”
Your guys do?
Kerr: “Yeah. Not all of them [laughs]. Draymond would be the same way.
“We’ll be watching tape of a game from, we played Houston in December or something, and guys will be like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that. This is what happened next.’
“So I don’t think it’s that rare. But the best players generally remember the most and have the sharpest memories.
This reminds me of how many chess grandmasters can easily recall and recite and visualize every move in a game from years past. I think James deserves a little more credit than just being on par with chess GMs: to memorize something so complex as a basketball game without even attempting to commit it to memory speaks to his extraordinary intelligence.