TORONTO – Becoming an NBA player requires the shedding of your old self, bit by bit.

Like any other kids they grow up fans of the game, they follow it. They have heroes. They stand in awe at times.

Growing up in Compton, Calif., Kobe Bryant was everything to DeMar DeRozan. The former Los Angeles Lakers icon was a hero and then later a mentor and a friend. He will always be DeRozan’s favourite player and one of the two best he says he ever has had the thrill of competing against.

The other?

LeBron James.

“One of the greatest ever. You have to give him that,” DeRozan said of the Cleveland Cavaliers star as the Toronto Raptors were preparing for their second-round series against the Cavs beginning Monday night. “The things he has been able to do over his whole career is amazing. To see it, to grow up watching it and be able to compete against him and seeing it first-hand — definitely one of the all-time greatest.”

But once they’re in the league, players don’t watch the NBA like fans. This their workplace. They watch for weaknesses. For opportunities. And when the Raptors watch Cleveland and James, they see a problem.

“When we watch the game as pros it’s simplified,” says P.J. Tucker. “We see how Cleveland is good.”

But even now, amongst the best 450 players in the world, the little kid in NBA players comes out on occasion. You can see social media explode when something truly special happens – Russell Westbrook or James Harden dropping a 50-point triple double, or some Steph Curry scoring explosion or Giannis Antetokounmpo defying physics.

And when it comes to James the line between fan and opponent gets even more blurred. For most of them he’s been the best player in the world for their entire careers.

He became a star when he was still in high school and has been dominating the NBA for 14 years with no signs of slowing down.

Patrick Patterson will have a hand in helping the Raptors try to slow down James – it’s understood that stopping someone who has averaged 28 points, nine rebounds, seven assists and two steals over 203 playoff games is an unrealistic goal. For obvious reasons he pays James respect, but tries to keep it professional.

“[You think of him] pretty much the same as anybody else. He’s just an opponent, said Patterson. “He’s hands down the greatest player in the NBA right now, he’ll be a Hall-of-Famer. But you just approach him like anybody else.”

Except he’s not. He’s one of the top-five players of all-time and still rising. P.J. Tucker will log lots of minutes on James in the series. The primary reason the Raptors went out to get him at the trade deadline from Phoenix was to add another tough, physical defender for a series like this one.

But with the moment upon him it’s not like Tucker sees all kinds of soft spots he thinks he and his teammates can exploit against James, whose Cavs swept the Indiana Pacers behind his 32.8/9.8/9.0 and three steals. Going up against James is like standing at the base of Everest knowing only an elite few ever scale the summit, most fail and some never make it back alive.

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Is there anything the Raptors can do to hold him down?

“I don’t know,” said Tucker with a laugh. “He can do everything, that’s the good thing about him, his IQ. He picks and chooses his times to attack, when he wants to be a passer, when it’s time for him to attack the rim and go score. He’s a really smart player, that’s the key is figuring it out on the go.

“You can prep for it but once you’re in the action and it’s happening, it’s a whole different ball game.”

If he has a weakness it’s that he can be an erratic, sometimes a reluctant shooter. A big reason the Golden State Warriors were able to open up a 3-1 lead on the Cavs in the NBA Finals was because James shot just 48 per cent from the floor and just 31 per cent from three. The main reason Cleveland was able to storm back?

James found his stroke and became impossible to defend as he shot 42 per cent from long range over the next three games while averaging 36 points as the Cavs won three straight in James’ signature moment.

The Cavs have surrounded James with waves of good-to-elite three-point shooters. They put the ball in his hands, space the floor and challenge defences to commit the help required to slow his path to the rim. At that point James simply lasers passes to opens shooters. As Raptors head coach Dwane Casey points out, there is a reason the Cavaliers led the NBA in corner threes – the most coveted of all shots in modern offenses.

Stay home on shooters? James attacks the basket in a way no one his size ever has before.

So look for the Raptors to crowd the paint on James and then rely on smarts and hustle to rotate to three-point shooters as needed. But if James is shooting well?

Look out.

Tucker recalled a game against James when he was still with the Suns and James was still with the Heat. “We had him in Miami that year and you want him to take those 18-, 19-foot jumpers,” he said. “And that’s what we were willing to live with and he made like eight or nine of them in a row, like fadeaways … [the coach] just brought it in after the game [and said] ‘Whaddya gonna do?’

“I think when he has those kinds of games, just bring it in,” said Tucker. “There’s nothing you can do.

Has he ever played against anyone like him?

No,” said Tucker. “Nobody. No.”

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And the challenges James present don’t stop when the Cavs don’t have the ball. Cleveland has played routinely porous defence this year – they were ranked 29th in the NBA after the all-star break, neck-and-neck with the tanking Lakers. It would be hard for a defending NBA champion to care any less on the defensive end. They were only slightly better in the first round against Indiana.

But the Raptors believe the Cavs can flip a switch defensively, and James is the primary reason why. While the likes of DeMarre Carroll, Tucker and Patterson will be losing sleep thinking about guarding James, DeRozan will be trying to get to the rim or find an open teammate knowing James is lurking.

“You have to look out for it no matter what you are doing, even if you are not going to the rim, passing lanes anywhere,” said DeRozan of James. “His awareness on the floor is amazing with his speed and his quickness … you just have to be conscious of him all the time. Something may look good for a split second but you have to understand he’s watching as well.”

But James’ reign can’t last forever and the Raptors have ambitions of their own. James must be dealt with even as he’s hell-bent on winning his fourth NBA title and forcing his way even deeper into the ‘best ever’ conversations.

For that reason, waiting or hoping for the Cavs legend to slow down or move on is hardly a winning strategy. He’s not going anywhere. So given the Raptors have four pending free agents in their rotation, including all-star Kyle Lowry, the time is now.

“It’s inevitable if we want to try and win the East,” said Tucker. “You gotta go through him.”

The Raptors hope is that they can make James’ life just a little more difficult one-on-one and then hustle like hell to close out on the likes of Kyle Korver, Channing Frye, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, the Cavs slithery point guard who presents his own challenges. Adding Serge Ibaka gives them mobile rim protection they didn’t have a year ago.

“It’s just about battling,” said Tucker “I don’t think anybody is going to stop him completely, it’s about battling, making him work, teamwork, being solid as a unit. You have to double him but he’s so good as a passer that he sees the floor and he can pick you apart, so the more you can play him one-on-one and make plays without having people help the better opportunity you have.”

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The opportunity the Raptors have before them is competing against the best in the game and one of the very best to ever play the game, while in his prime.

But for the Raptors to accomplish things they dreamed about as kids they need to thwart the ambitions of someone they’ve looked up to for ages. They have to silence their inner fan.

“It’s an honour to compete against him,” said Patterson. “I’ll be able to tell whoever I’m with in the future, family, kids, when everything’s said and done and he’s in the Hall of Fame, I’ll be able to tell them I was guarding, I was on the court with, hands down, one of the greatest guys to ever play the game of basketball.”

How about telling them that you won?

“That,” said Patterson. “Would be great.”