LeBron James has never been your average player.

“He is truly a king to his queen,” the Los Angeles Lakers star’s wife Savannah James told Cleveland Magazine in 2018. “He treats me with so much respect. I mean, it’s hard to not love him, with the way that he is with me, and the kids, and his mom and just everyone who’s around him.”

Lack of admiration has certainly never been a problem for LeBron, 41, who’ll appear in his record 301st playoff game May 9. But having been in the spotlight since he was a kid, appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated before he graduated from high school, he knows who the real ones are.

Starting with his sweetheart from the before times, short as they were.

Savannah was there when there were “no cameras, no lights,” the Akron, Ohio, native told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. “You wouldn’t be talking to me right now if it weren’t for her.”

As in, the four-time NBA champion may have been a talented basketball player no matter what, but he wouldn’t be the man he is today without the MVP of his home team.