You can see it in his manly 6-8, 240-pound build and his unflinching poise. You can hear it in his increasingly polished answers to reporters' questions about life, business and basketball.

Tonight will mark the biggest transition from childhood to adulthood for 18-year-old LeBron James when he is selected No. 1 by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA draft at Madison Square Garden.

The once skinny, precocious basketball talent from St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron will soon be a working man with the expectations of a city and a league-not to mention a multibillion dollar shoe company-on his shoulders.

James said he is ready for it.

"I've kind of known this day is coming because I've been almost set up to be at this draft," James said during a news conference at a hotel in midtown Manhattan yesterday. "All of the other things that's happened before the draft is nothing compared to tomorrow."