NBA: Miami Heat Star Lebron James Would Make Great Quarterback, NFL Legend Joe Theismann Says

Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders...LeBron James?

According to NFL legend Joe Theismann, James, the reigning MVP of the NBA, has something in common with those aforementioned stars-namely, the ability to excel in more than one sport.

The two-time Pro Bowler and winner of Super Bowl XVII with the Washington Redskins has recently suggested that James could make it in the NFL as a quarterback. In an interview with Fox Sports Florida Saturday, Theismann said that he was willing to teach the four-time NBA MVP  how to play the position.

"I would love to work him out and also serve as his agent," Theismann said. "I'll go wherever he wants this summer. He could play another four years in the NBA before seriously trying the NFL. ... There are not a lot of 38- or 39-year-old basketball players, but there are 38- and 39-year-old quarterbacks, so there's always time for him."

The discussion dates back to Friday when James--who has been connecting with some long ball passes to fellow Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade all season and recently during the Eastern Conference Finals-was asked as to whether he would have made a good quarterback had he focused his talents on it.

James was a quarterback on the freshman team at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, where he played football for three years before he decided to focus full-time on basketball.

His answer?

"I think so," James said. "I have the ability. I can see and read plays. I study a lot, so I know defenses and things of that nature. So I would have been pretty good if I had decided to go for it."

Playing two sports would hardly be a stretch, as several notable athletes have made a living being two-sports stars, most notably Jackson, who played football with the Raiders and baseball with the Chicago White Sox, and Sanders, who won Super Bowls in Dallas and San Francisco and helped the Atlanta Braves reach the World Series twice in 1991 and 1992.

Theismann seems to think that, too. As one of the Redskins' most beloved players ever and a winning track record behind him, the former 1983 NFL MVP thinks that the super-athletic James, who stands at a statuesque 6'8" and 250 pounds of muscle, think James has both the physical and mental tools to succeed. In fact, Theismann went so far as to call James "the most tremendous physical specimen in all of sports."

"I think he's certainly talented enough.  He's intelligent.  He's like the quarterback on the Miami Heat, but there are so many things [to being an NFL quarterback]," Theismann said of James. "There's reading defenses. There's throwing the ball with touch. There's throwing a spiral in the wind.  Maybe his hands are too big.  The football is a different shape, and a basketball is obviously a lot bigger than a football."

In fact, should the Memphis Grizzlies manage to do the unthinkable and come back from an 0-3 deficit in the Western Conference Finals and the Heat advance to the NBA Finals, Theismann, who lives in Memphis, hinted that he might even approach James about the idea in person.