Mayweather has been defending his title as a champion for over a decade now, and is exactly someone the Heat could look up to as they try to defend their mark as NBA champions for the third straight year this season.
''We're trying to defend two titles. He's been defending for a long time,'' LeBron James said, via Yahoo! Sports. ''He definitely knows where we're coming from. It's exciting at the end of the day to have someone, one of the greatest of all-time, to be in the presence. It's something you can talk about years from now. ... We're honored and blessed to have him in the building.''
Mayweather has been a frequent around many other sports leagues, from the NFL to even college football and basketball. The head of Money Team can be seen courtside at several at Heat games as he witnesses LeBron, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and company take over.
''From one champion to another, he just talked about him being proud of us, how we handled ourselves,'' Wade said. ''He knows as a champion how hard it is to go out there every night and compete, when someone can take you down and take what you work for. He just kept telling us how proud he is of us and that'd he'd be here to support, just as he was for many years.''
The Heat, meanwhile, have shown some fandom to Mayweather's sport as well. James and Wade both practiced using boxing and MMA as conditioning. Head coach Erik Spoelstra, whose mother is from the Philippines, remains a big fan of Manny Pacquiao.
''Champs-to-champ respect, that's universal and pretty awesome,'' Spoelstra said. ''Our guys are obviously in awe of what he's been able to do for an extremely long period of time, 17 years being on top. That's almost too remarkable to even fathom.''
Mayweather is coming off a big win over Canelo Alvarez a few weeks ago, where he earned a record $41.5 million. The Heat tip off the 2013-14 NBA season at the end of this month.
This article was written by Josh Dhani. Follow him on Twitter here and read more of his work here.
