LeBron James will celebrate his 35th …

LeBron James will celebrate his 35th birthday Monday with a party he will pay for himself. He pretended to grumble about having to pick up the tab for his own bash, but he doesn’t mind in the least. To him it’s a momentous occasion for reasons that go well beyond athletic longevity. “The milestone of it is when you grow up in the inner city, around a lot of things you don’t want your kids to see, to be able to get to this point in age where the statistics are stacked up against you because of obvious reasons, that’s a blessing,” James, a native of Akron, Ohio, said Sunday in a reflective moment. “And it’s more of a blessing for me to be able to do what I love every day and be able to let my family reap the benefits of that and they allow me to be an inspiration to them.”