After graduating from the Pentecostal Church of God Christian Academy of Winter Haven in 1993, James worked driving delivery trucks for Sunny Florida Dairy and also part-time at a local feed lot in the Tampa Bay Area and learned the meaning of hard work from his father.

In an interview with The Seattle Times, James said that meeting Shaquille O'Neal at an Orlando Magic practice inspired him to pursue a professional basketball career.

[1] With Florida A&M, James played 81 games with career averages of 16.0 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 4.48 blocks, with 49.5% on field goal attempts.

In the 2001–02 season, James played 56 games with 40 starts and averaged 5.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 0.4 steals and scored on 49.1% of field goal attempts.

James played well for the Seattle SuperSonics during the 2005 NBA playoffs, averaging 12.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in 11 games against the Kings and San Antonio Spurs.

After the 2004–05 season, James signed a 5-year, $30 million free-agent contract with the Knicks on the strength of an outstanding performance in the 2005 playoffs in which he greatly exceeded his regular-season statistics.

[9] Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated wrote "James was a chronic underachiever who cashed in on a brief moment of excellence".

On February 19, 2009, James was traded by the Knicks along with Tim Thomas and Anthony Roberson to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for Larry Hughes.

James returned to professional basketball in 2012, signing with the Caciques de Humacao of the Puerto Rican BSN league on February 28.