While The Bat Kiss might still be ravaging the United States, it’s not all doom and gloom for sports-mad Los Angelenos.
The 2019-2020 NBA season playoffs wrapped up in October, with the LA Lakers beating Miami Heat in the finals to nab their first NBA championship in a decade. It was a strange season for the NBA, with the last eight games of the regular season and the entire playoffs being held at a specially-designed ‘NBA Bubble’ at Walt Disney World in Florida. Still, the Lakers brought home the bacon – in no small part thanks to the prodigious skills of a certain Mr. LeBron James.
The highest-paid player in the sport and one of the greatest basketballers of all time, LeBron is an unparalleled sporting tour de force. The 2020 NBA Finals added some significant silver to LeBron’s already expansive collection: not only is it his fourth NBA championship but he was also named the NBA Finals MVP for the fourth time too – becoming the first player in NBA history to be named Finals MVP with three different franchises (the Lakers, the Heat and the Cleveland Cavaliers).
Accolades like that deserve a hefty reward, we think. Funnily enough, ‘King James’ is on the same wavelength. Looks like he’s celebrated his 2020 success in a big way: the 6ft 9in giant was spotted hurtling down a Californian highway in a black Porsche 918 Spyder – the fastest Porsche ever made, and arguably the fastest car ever made – worth around US$2.2. million.
The 918 is an incredibly unusual and rare car. A plug-in hybrid convertible powered by a 4.6L V8 in conjunction with two electric motors, it makes 652kW and 1,280Nm of torque, and was independently verified by Car and Driver of doing 0-60mph in a blistering 2.1sec – the fastest 0-60 time ever recorded. That puts it ahead of insanely fast cars like the Bugatti Chiron, Lamborghini Huracán Performante, McLaren 720S and the Tesla Model S Performance with ‘Ludicrous Mode’.
Porsche only made 918 of them between 2013 and 2015, and their headline-snatching performance means they’re hard to co
me by, not only because they’re in demand but because that insane speed has meant more than a few have seen an untimely demise. They originally retailed for US$845,000 but prices have skyrocketed in recent years.
LeBron’s got plenty of reasons to celebrate. He’s just signed a 2-year, US$85 million extension with the Lakers – more than enough to afford a Porsche 918. He also splashed out on a $325,000 Richard Mille watch as part of his post-playoffs spending spree… Must be nice.
