CLEVELAND -- LeBron James scored six points in limited action during the Cleveland Cavaliers' annual Wine & Gold Scrimmage on Monday, but it was another No. 6 that made things interesting.
James wore a No. 6 practice uniform for the event. That was, of course, his jersey number during his four seasons in Miami as well as for the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. (He wore No. 9 for the Athens Games in 2004.)
James will be wearing his familiar No. 23 for the Cavs this season, the same number he has worn every season he's been in Cleveland, but he explained how he feels comfortable practicing while donning No. 6.
"It's just a number of mine," James said after the scrimmage. "One of my two numbers -- 6, 23. There's nothing to it. It's my practice jersey."
James' Wine team, comprising Cleveland's top rotation players, lost to the Gold team 55-49, thanks in large part to rookie Quinn Cook's 13 points.
James compared the jersey flip-flop to how former football star Deion Sanders would practice while wearing No. 2 -- the same number he wore in college at Florida State University -- but play games while wearing a different number.
"When he went to the pros he wore 2 in practice but wore 21 on the playing field," James said of Sanders. "It's like that."
Sanders wore No. 21 the first 12 seasons of his career with Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas and Washington and No. 37 in his final two years in Baltimore, but he practiced in No. 2 throughout his NFL career.
In the summer of 2014, shortly after announcing his return to Cleveland, James asked for fans' input on Instagram to decide what number he should wear during his second stint with the Cavs.
Several weeks later James took to Instagram again to reveal his choice to go back to No. 23 and included a caption that read in part: "2·3=6 We still family 6."
