A deep dive into LeBron James’s team announcements, from The Decision, to “I’m Coming Home,” to his latest poetic tweets about the Philadelphia 76ers

testing testing testing testing testing one two three we didn't mean to wear the same outfit we did not and yet here we are and yet nevertheless she persists okay let's see how that sounded hi charlotte good day madeline we're back with another episode of the sports gossip show presented by ebay live ding ding ding ding ding ding nice oh thank you so much that sounded like when you win a game at a carnival oh well i should trademark it sell it to big carnival big carn big carny yeah perfect beautiful um how are you i'm doing good how are you oh you know phenomenal we're kind of matching we realized today yeah again not intentionally for those listening and not watching us on on youtube or wherever you watch us you yeah i think you can watch us in a couple i think um um also on apple we're all over the great review like subscribe as i always say please do it makes a huge difference um we're both wearing graphic t-shirts yeah yep white ones and which we both never wear graphic tees not of course we're both wearing them today and here we are here we are mine is a boat on it madeline's is unhinged yeah it's a it was a non-authorized as you might imagine um nick's championship t-shirt that i got that has the grim reaper og and anobis tip in during game four and then below it it says the power of friendship so kind of weird but i like it's a beautiful beautiful shirt yes one of the best really yeah it's a pretty good one you know i like anything with a grim reaper on it i'm gonna be honest there's it's metal you know hardcore metal hardcore that's how people describe me hardcore yeah perfect um well we have a fabulous show today we are doing a deep dive into lebron james oh yes what's he been up to well he's been up to a big thing he just signed a two-year eight million dollar contract with the philadelphia 76ers yes um this is you know there's news there's gossip and then there's gossip yes and this is this is big um lebron james has been playing with the los angeles lakers um since uh 2018 i i had that's right yeah you know we yes 2018 yeah there you go 2018 um you know sometimes your brain is sometimes your brain's cheddar and sometimes it's swiss cheese as the old saying goes um no so so you know he had a really good run with la obviously he won a championship but people didn't know whether he was going to keep playing or not and apparently he didn't either because he announced this news on x slash twitter i still hate calling it x i know it's still twitter to me yeah so he did it on twitter and and he did it as um i i i can only describe this series of uh missives as like a live journal it really is well it's also funny i mean we can get into this announcement in detail too that it's spaced weird right it all to your point it feels like it was stream of conscious i'm sure consciousness consciousness yeah stream of conscious nope consciousness you know that was a grim reaper coming at me grim reaper oh he is hanging over yeah but i know but it reads like a diary entry almost yes yes and i'm like people i would assume on his team approved it you know what it actually sounds like it sounds like a monologue from harry bradshaw on sex in the city yes where it's like she's smoking a cigarette and she's like i thought it was done when the season ended i wasn't ready to announce it and i couldn't help but think about it and i couldn't help but wonder i mean like that's what's going on here that's literally and i knew i needed some time to really decide but i was pretty sure i played my last game blah blah blah blah he so basically he says that um obviously eight million dollars is not a lot of money for the one of or the greatest basketball players of all time he says that i'm not doing this for the money i'm not going for my i'm not going for family what am i really playing for at this point i still want to sacrifice i still want to work i still want to grind i still want to compete to win and to have a chance at the feeling of winning new tweet another championship i believe i can help make the philadelphia philadelphia 76ers championship team and i'm so excited to energize a new fan base and start this incredible journey one last time thank you la miami i'll forever love and northeast ohio will will always home that's what i'm saying i'm like i don't feel like anyone approved this because also what drives me crazy in this besides the weird spacing and you know you can put into a website you or into x actually to preview how many characters per tweet so you can prep it so it's a clean a clean thread if i was a social media manager i would have done that also there's an extra space in the last one for i believe i can help make the philadelphia 76ers championship right before i that should have been deleted so clearly this was copy and pasted incorrectly and then also missing a word at the end i'm like lebron this is your this is your biggest one this is bigger than the decision which we will be talking about this is the decision decision yeah this is it this is decision desk probably i mean cnn projects lebron did cnn project andy king no who is it now john king john king doesn't it feel like his name should be andy king though you know what i think so you look at that man and you say well that man's name is surely john king or steve kornacki doing a projection oh my god ron went that's really good that would have been a good little play just get our blood pressure up yeah yeah um so anyways i just here let me can i can i please i agree with you to one thousand percent this is a yes and podcast i'm just going to present another alternative here all right what if this is um post-war poetry where you know you the line breaks it's free verse line breaks i mean can i just read this part again i still want to compete to win and to have a chance at the feeling of winning another championship line break you know the tension well it yeah okay you may be right because in the in the first one it ends with well he spelled decide wrong i'm actually also noticing he said i was honest at the last press conference when i said i needed to look at myself and he spells decide wrong decide if i still love end of it end of tweet next tweet this game period you know what i like about this what this isn't capitalized this is like true free verse it's not like yes it's not like a line break and then a capital it's a line break and then lowercase this game yes i'm just but but you're right this is not this is not it it really pains me because i know that lebron went rogue and did this himself this is not this is not the work of a social media manager i don't think do you think he has one i honestly don't feel like he does based on what he posts on his instagram like the smiling through it all can't believe this my life meme a social media manager could never come up with that no that was just lebron's own thoughts and that's an element of this whole thing where i think lebron i think he thinks in poetry yes in a way that you can't replicate or harness and you don't know when it's going to come out but that's going to go more viral than any premeditated even funny thing a social media no it's true because lebron is so lebron yes he's so lebron spelling errors and like it's just amazing and and also this announcement being posted on x is also a choice we over instagram it's different we've talked about different situation but mitchell robinson posting his statement about his broken pinky on facebook the the platform choice here is also i think really fascinating because i would have assumed if he would do anything it would maybe be a video announcement on youtube or like a talking to camera yeah thing or an instagram in feed carousel statement yeah i could have seen that x was not something i thought he would do as the main way to announce this news and i think that that speaks to to your um astute observation that he just went for it he went for it because i think he probably thought well where's the place that one releases news in a text-based format and thought oh the app where you write stuff yes and it's and so that's that's what happened um we're gonna get into more of lebron's current social media use why he went to the sixers what that team is looking like the ins and outs of all of that but first we wanted to just take you down memory lane of how did we get here um how is this going into lebron's 24th season in the nba um why is he all of a sudden going to go play for a new team which means we have to take you back to where it all began rewind rewind really um i'm just googling one thing that i forgot to look up okay here we go um so lebron james was a phenomenon yeah out of high school yes he went to saint mary saint vincent in ohio he's from akron ohio um and he was deemed in the cover of sports illustrated this is also just gonna end up being about the the transformation of sports media let's be honest well that's every one of our that's every one of our shows really think about it for better for worse um on he was on the cover of sports media and he was on the cover of sports media and he was on the cover of sports media and he was on the cover of sports media and he was on the cover of sports illustrated uh sports media and he was on the cover of sports illustrated uh announcing him the chosen one and sports illustrated uh announcing him the chosen one and it is such a wild thing for someone to live up to something that was said about them when they were 16 17 years old can you imagine the pressure he must have felt i mean that would have been crazy you're in a high school and then adults put on the cover magazine that copy associated with you i mean i mean i can't imagine what that felt like it i can't either but it it worked out for him in 2004 he was he was the rookie of the year um in 2007 he brought the calves to their first ever nba finals they did get swept yeah by the san antonio spurs but that doesn't matter um in 2009 he was the league mvp in 2010 he was the league mvp and in 2010 this is where things get get very interesting he decides to leave the cleveland cavaliers he does and madeline i would say this was one of the first um um athlete driven media moments in sports media that you can imagine that was a big part of his life and i think that's what made him so successful and i think that's what made him so successful that just that captured the world yeah no it really did i mean that was the decision yes and the decision was a special that i remember sitting down to watch on espn it was live it was and lebron's sitting in a chair i think he is he at a basketball court is he at his high school he was at a desk let's google this what a what a thought now it's the decision lebron james let's see where where is he where where no he he's i think he's in a i think he's in a basketball it looks like he's in a gym am i wrong no he is he is he's in a gym look like a gym and he is on a riser yeah and it aired on espn on july 8th 2010 but charlotte you mentioned something uh who thought of the decision how did the decision come to be so this i i'm not sure i knew this before we started putting this this whole episode together but bill simmons uh founder of grantland longtime espn guy founded the ringer run spotify um he has been doing this for a long time and sort of i mean it's sort of like lebron he's he's remained at the top for a long time um and you got to give him you got to give him props for that it's very impressive because in 2009 he hit a column i mean before that he'd call him but there was a mailbag column on and there's a question from a listener or reader drew wagner what if lebron announces he will pick his 2010-2011 team live on abc on a certain date for a show called lebron's choice so apparently bill simmons pitched this idea to maverick carter who's lebron's longtime business partner still is they grew up together in akron um james's agent at the time leon rose who is leon rose he works for the knicks architect who's he architect architected designed there you built this team this championship team on my t-shirt he sure did along with um a guy named worldwide west uh who is also an advisor to the the knicks now but was an advisor to lebron um and then i think somehow it went away because the calves didn't make it to the finals during game two of the finals maverick carter ran into uh jim gray who's a broadcaster who recently had a podcast on the show and he was like i'm gonna do this with tom brady also i learned introduced him maybe to buying a piece of the raiders oh i mean there's a whole that's all the money other um and then gray pitched the idea to john skipper who is the president of espn at the time and they did this they did the decision it's a little unclear of where the idea is fully formed but the interesting thing is they did it as something called barter syndication where lebron's team sold ads against this an extraordinary amount of money in exchange for giving espn the story so lebron's team made money and at the time david stern who's a commissioner of the nba he said that it gave uh lebron and his camp too much control and tried to get it canceled you know that kind of reminds me of is how in media like if you have to give the same amount of air time to different political candidates you know if you interview one you gotta at least put in the request to interview the other one yes i feel like this is kind of david stern i mean we could do a 10-minute interview with him and he's like 10-part deep dive on david stern right but that he was like this is too much air time to one of our players well it's also one guy it's also one of our current players and lebron had been in the league i guess seven years at that point he's like i'm sorry one of our current players is going to make money on announcing where he's going right which you can just see like the tentacles of what athlete-driven media would become yeah yeah yeah totally moment totally um so he sat down on this live broadcast and he said the famous phrase heard around the world i'm going to take my talents to south beach to go play he played for the miami heat he did um my favorite thing i think that came out of this was uh the letter oh my god the calves owner dan gilbert wrote um it was on the calves website and it was called open letter to fans from cavaliers majority owner dan gilbert madeline can you tell people the best part well the best part about the letter is that it's in comic sans which if you listen to our episode with fred katz where we talked about fonts yeah bringing up fonts again certainly a choice to be using comic sans for what you would think would be some a piece of media that you want to be taken seriously well a statement that you want to have some umph yeah some gusto behind it and it's comic sans the font i would use to do a project in middle school in kid pics if you know you know as we said the only thing funnier would have been pyrus yes that or or curls mt what's that one look it up i'll pull up pearls mt font this one this one oh yes oh yes very good this was like girly font that's this was like hey you're going to limited to they have a journal with font on it that says oh my computer says like a post about my cat post about my cat yay it's fine my computer's charged it's all good okay really just um no but that well the other thing that i find funny about the statement is that the op like how he addresses uh cleveland fans as it says dear cleveland all it's like each letter is capitalized the first letter of each word is capitalized in the two two subject line yeah yeah yeah i guess yes it's as if this is the name of someone all of northeast ohio and cleveland cavalier supporters wherever you may be tonight which okay he he says um this was announced at the several day narcissistic self-promotional build-up culminating with the national tv special of his quote decision unlike anything ever quote witnessed in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment entertainment clearly this is bitterly disappointing to all of us um and then he goes on to say you simply to the fans you simply don't deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal you've given so much and deserve so much more in the meantime i want to make one statement to you tonight in all kinds of ways i personally guarantee that the cleveland cavaliers will win an nba championship before the self-titled former quote king wins one you can take it to the bank okay well he maybe shouldn't have taken it to the bank right well they they did win a championship with with lebron with lebron um so lebron signs a six-year 110 million dollar contract a lot of bucks with the heat oh and i think sorry like money bucks not the milwaukee oh no no no i know oh no i know i was just i was just what i was like yeah lebron famously signed a six-year 110 million dollar deal with the milwaukee bucks what if it's just like you know how those stories like sliding doors like the alternate story what if this episode was just and then we departed into somewhere yeah and they're like what yeah we just do a whole episode where every team like the facts are right like the numbers are but we just say different teams and we just do the episode with a straight face it's fan fiction maybe that's a little april thing about april something to think about um yeah so he signed the six-year deal with the heat um and then helped them win their first championship in 2012 yep with him with him wins it again yes back-to-back baby hard to do as we say what in any sport it's hard to win back-to-back championships it doesn't matter what it is argentina couldn't do it in the world cup we'll see if the knicks can do it we sure will we sure will um yeah so so lebron then uh has another announcement to make um and it's the opposite of the decision because he's saying that he's going to go back to the calves and he does how does he do this madeline he does it through a sports illustrated essay which that is very different from a live moment on television on espn and it's also very different from a uh post on x with spelling errors and weird spacing it is it is he called this one um i'm coming home which i like i like the photos that that went with it he's sitting there we got a a big championship ring on from the heat yeah which i feel like maybe you didn't need that one in the shot do you know what i'm saying oh i think i like it yeah i think it was a little bit of a oh hello dan gilbert i'm coming back to your team yeah okay with you It's this, do you guys have one of these? - Right, right. what's interesting here is that this was almost like a precursor to the players tribune yes where you know it's it's lebron james has told to lee jenkins who is a longtime writer for sports illustrated um and he said in this in this essay my goal is still to win as many titles as possible no question but what's most important for me is bringing one trophy back to northeast ohio um and dan gilbert calves owner who wrote the comic sands letter um they met before they made it official and um he apologized to lebron wow yeah and another person was mad shocker yeah miami heat president pat riley was also not pleased that lebron was leaving and i think that lebron had a feeling he knew that things were heading south and he was going to be well heading north oh he was good things were heading south and south and he was like oh my god i'm going to be heading north when pat riley um had chocolate chip cookies removed from the team plane lebron loves chocolate chip cookies with like i think it was like a exterior like a crust around the edge and then it's soft inside and when lebron got on the plane and and they were no longer there he was like well this feels like a little too much micromanaging and i think it's time to go yeah it is funny i do feel like there are moments where you're at a job or something and you just think that's it and he's he was like the cookies for lebron he was like that's it for me he knew he knew you know we always say athletes are employees true teams are companies and it's a relatable moment yes it's when whatever that is for you and the cookies are gone and you say well i guess we had a good run yeah and you know what lebron had a great one run he had a great run two championships there he had wayne wade he is he had all of his buddies chris bosh yes my friend from the to the rocket launch madeline went to a rocket nasa event i brought this up at least four times on the show but it's worth it but every time we bring up those three yeah i have to talk about it you know i want to see um the heat play in boston oh my god i think i just graduated from college and the thing that i remember most about that game of sitting in the nosebleeds and chris bosh's diamond earring you could see the light glinting off of it from where he was on the bench i think he wasn't playing so he was in in street clothes and and had this wow beautiful diamond and i just think every time i think of chris bosh it's like a you know the cartoon where it's like a diamond glint and it goes that was him yeah wow i like that memory well it's not really here nor there but it's nice it's up here and it always will be up there thank you well before we continue on in the career of mr lebron james we have our little fashion mailbag segment presented by ebay live we sure do what's our question today madeline well our question today is related to lebron the question is if you could have any lebron james jersey at any point in his career what would it be you could secure one hmm i think it might be like from his rookie season oh i thought you were gonna say what i was gonna say what you didn't no no no keep going explain why i think because because that was so long ago now i think it would really put into perspective how long he's been playing for just to see even how different of a style yeah the jersey was in 2003 okay yeah you know i don't know i'm into that okay well it's two one is a jersey that doesn't exist but i kind of feel like there is at least a mock-up is if he played for the knicks which didn't happen obviously if there was like a lebron knicks jersey yeah that had been mocked up at some point to try to like woo him absolutely that would be number one number two i think like a high school jersey or something like couldn't you know like very same yeah like kind of an if you know you know sort of like a high school jersey or something like a high school jersey or something i like that a lot that would be my second option and ebay live is a great place to look for all sorts of jerseys yes you might not even thought about thinking about wanting exactly so thanks to our mailbag sponsor ebay live can't miss live streams heart-pounding auctions iconic fashion and collectibles whatever you're into you can bring it home right now don't miss another second at ebay.com slash ebay live boom boom okay okay let's move right along so lebron goes back to cleveland which is a pretty ballsy move if you think about it it is because you've already not won a championship at the place that you're from that i think that might be the ultimate betting on yourself move yeah yes because the only thing i could compare it to would be like if tom brady went to tampa bay and then decided i'm going to keep playing and go back to the patriots right and and it's especially i think in some ways it's a good lesson for even when a bridge feels so burned like even when your employer writes a public letter about you trashing you in comic stands life is long and nothing is ever over right and lebron went back to the calves and um they made it in so that was in in 2014 he signed a two-year um 41 million dollar contract in 2015 the calves made it to the finals lost to the warriors um and then 2016 the calves once again played the warrior in the finals beat them got the franchise's first ever nba championship and these are some of my favorite memories of watching basketball oh my god it was unbelievable i will because you're watching it and you're like i feel like i'm watching a movie a sports movie yes you know what i mean yes in the same way i felt watching the knicks not talking about the next but it was like watching i love you just bringing everything back to the group for next year he's a sicko he's a sicko but no but it or or 28 to 3 come back yeah yeah i'm in poor whatever falcons it's okay it's okay um those moments in sports this felt like one of those moments yes defining moments for a sport yes absolutely and i think too like i feel like the thing that i kept tweeting because this was when twitter was still twitter and i was just like online constantly i just kept tweeting things like i feel so lucky to be alive at a time when i can watch lebron james play basketball yes this was also twitter 2016 that that time in america in the spring summer where people were pretty sure hillary clinton was gonna win i was living in dc at the time and i remember watching at a bar called sollies which i don't know if it's still there but it was just an amazing dive bar the energy was insane it was just so um i felt i think i did it was hopeful in general and here's lebron like finally doing it for the town that for the for the the city he's from like it was just the vibes the vibes were immaculate they were immaculate immaculate they were so good no they were so good um they obviously win as charlotte mentioned and my favorite thing is that pat riley came back around um and reportedly texted lebron uh at the beginning of game seven saying win this and be free which is a nice it's kind of an olive branch extension of sorts yeah another example of life is long and nothing's ever over yeah you can get in fights with all these people i guess you know what i will say though what i think it's probably easier to mend fences when you are the greatest basketball player who's ever lived right and i think it's probably also easier to mend fences between employers when you're both men yeah yeah oh yeah yeah yeah 100 you know 100 just as i'm just talking out loud here yes i as i think about these situations but it is a great a good example of like two powerful men and dan gilbert and pat riley who were able to say you know what i'm going to swallow this and i'm going to swallow this and i'm going to swallow this and i'm going to swallow my ego here because this guy and what he's doing is clearly bigger than me and my small feelings 100 so that's cool yeah um after the season lebron went into free agency again he re-signed with the calves um and he had a three-year hundred million contract which was at the time the highest paid player in the league that's a lot of money yeah a lot of money so yes the calves end up going back to the nba finals in 2017 losing to golden state again i can't believe they played three i can't believe the finals three years in a row or was it yeah it was it was calves warriors what that was a time what maybe well maybe we'll get a little spurs next yeah stop it what are you doing now you're just you're just poking me it's like you know when someone is you're you know i feel like you see 10 cracks people who like you'll have a conversation you'll say something and then they try to like be like relate to it and they say something to you and you're like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry to just like talk about themselves yes that's what you're doing you know what this is you know what this is this is stop tickling me this is that you stop it stop it stop it um but no they also they played the warriors again in 2018 they sure did and lost wow i forgot that that was four years in a row um 2018 everybody was like uh well what's lebron gonna do and that was when he went to los angeles yes he signed a four-year 154 million dollar contract with the helped bring them an nba title in 2020 the bubble championship which people argue was that a real championship is a lot of debates about that that deserve an asterisk i think it's real here's here's my feeling about asterisks is what not a thing it's not a thing an asterisk championship isn't a thing because if it's a team won they won they won well i would also argue it's harder to win the bubble championship than a non-bubble you're playing like in a silent gym in orlando what's oh at disney world i think that's what wasn't that disney world where the bubble was i mean that to me i would argue is a harder situation to it's just weird a silent gym in orlando i think is how some horror movies yes and then remember they would like pump in the sound of the court on television don't you kind of remember that they had like sound and also white noise something interesting people say that this should be an asterisk i actually think none of the teams were traveling like yes you could almost argue that because they didn't have to travel people could be at a higher level of basketball playing i know so it actually maybe matters the most yeah right like sure you didn't have a home crowd advantage or any or opposing team or whatever but like it was kind of pure basketball and then everybody was on a level playing field because it was literally just the same playing field and because you know what i'm remembering did lebron during those games do when he does the chalk oh my god that i someone needs to tell us if he did that because i do think about like there's so much like pomp and circumstance these players will do to egg on the crowd or its own rituals that they would do ahead of games he did he did do it it was an empty that that is bold to just do that with no cheering except maybe a couple like yeah come on teammates and squeaky shoes that's like if you that's like an actor going all out for an audition tape yes you're in a room by yourself just you know and and it takes a certain level of performance it does to be able to do that without the crown no it's true you know what else it is what it's us sitting in this room doing the podcast it is with no laugh no just no laugh we think it's sometimes funny but we don't know we have no idea hopefully this is funny just imagine what if we just put like a bunch of cardboard cutouts of people with headphones on behind the camera like the fake the cardboard people in the yes uh well anyway so then lebron signs a two-year 97 million dollar extension in 2022 so he's like i'm sticking it out with the likers and he did until he didn't uh yeah except in 2024 he agreed to another two-year 104 million extension with the player option um and a no trade clause which is what you get when you're so famous that teams can say we want to trade you to this team and you can say well as lebron basically did i don't want to live in memphis he did not they were going to trade him to memphis but he was talking crap about memphis no and towards the end of lebron's time with the lakers there clearly seemed to be some issues with front office there was an article in the espn that we talked about when this came out uh about some between him and jeannie buss who was the team's now previous owner i think she still works for the team yep um but clearly it seemed like lebron was like all right it was getting to a maybe not a pat riley chocolate chip cookie situation but there was probably other issues going on that lebron was not pleased with i think it got to a point where lebron um in his 40s he's 41 right now and and i think that los angeles is the way that their roster was built with lebron it became clear that they were going to have to at a certain point i think it became clear that everybody was going to move on because it probably wasn't going to be a championship situation with him the way things were um which brings us to lebron james going to the philadelphia 76ers yes madeline you and i were pretty sure this wasn't going to happen i did not think this was going to happen i thought narratively cleveland probably made the most sense because there are obviously these rumors that he's doing a documentary which i'm assuming he's doing um and it felt like narratively that would have been a better story arc um but i guess you could argue that going to a team that hasn't won a championship in 43 years is a very lebron james move that he wants to be like i want to be the guy to bring a championship to the city yes in the same way that i'll say it i'll say it but you know what i'm gonna say for you because there were rumors there were rumors apparently if the knicks had not won a championship this year yeah lebron wanted to go there right which is the most lebron james thing as you said to be like i'm gonna save this i'm gonna save them and then they they won and i think that lebron's team reached out and the knicks were like no i think we're good and that might even have been before last year um but who cares facts don't matter doesn't matter so so the second best option i think in terms of what team can you say that also has good players and could have a chance of winning a championship because that clearly is what lebron wants um per his poem about the team that's going to win a championship where he's going to go play next is the the sixers are probably one of the most tortured fan bases in in the nba certainly maybe in sports um and so so lebron was basically like well i'll go to the next best place that i could become the savior of the city um so who's their starting lineup now well their starting lineup is pretty stacked number one they just got jalen brown from your boston celtics which i i don't know if you've heard of jalen brown from the boston celtics the second i saw the news that lebron was going to philly i wish i had a camera i wish jalen was live on his live stream to just see his reaction because i feel like he was like i'm going to be the guy for this franchise because he was kind of second fiddle to jason tatum apparently though he was a big part of reaching out to lebron which is crazy and he's been reposting lebron's content right on instagram so then maybe he wasn't as mad about it because i think he might have been but maybe because he thought well this guy is older than i am yeah like at the very least i can run more than he can do you know what i mean it's like it's like a safe it's like you're playing with your idol yes and also he played against him for many years right right but also it's like maybe they would have butted heads more if they'd both been the same age but yeah it's like well i'm still the young gun right right um but he joins uh along with vj edgecombe tyrese maxi and now tyrese maxi shares an agent with uh lebron not just an agent like super agent mogul rich paul who is engaged to adele the singer maybe adele will be in philly wouldn't that be something that would be fun has she been there i don't know if she's ever gone to a game and well she's probably been to the city i would imagine for a concert sure she's been there but i don't know if she's been to philadelphia in general anyone know any idea um yeah um but the sixers um for anyone who doesn't know uh the sixers are tortured because uh in 2013 um as madeline as you said they haven't won a championship in 43 years and in 2013 this guy named sam hanky came in as gm and said we are going to lose so badly that we are going to get all the number one picks um they it was called trust the process sam hanky was asking fans to trust the process this resulted in getting joelle and bead who is the center for the sixers who has not been very healthy uh in a lot of injuries um but basically they managed to get lose a lot get high picks and then choose all of the wrong players all of the time and now philly is at a point where they actually have a really good roster they they played what they beat the celtics last year also a funny thing about this is that jaylen brown after the celtics lost to the sixers went on twitch again he was live he goes live too much um and was just talking trash about joelle and bead and how joelle and bead flops all the time and now that is his teammate that's a situation so we'll see we'll see i think okay we've shared privately our predictions for how this is going to go yes should we share them publicly yes i love lebron and i want nothing more than to him for him to mark the end of his season as a professional basketball player by bringing a championship to a city that has not had one in 43 years that nothing would bring me greater joy it will be an unbelievable moment for me to be able to be able to be able to be able to be an unbelievable documentary and i'll consume all of it it'll be great however i fear that that's not the case and i think what i said to you is i think they're going to lose in the first round of the playoffs first round i think i'm going first round wow sorry i don't think that's crazy i don't think i just don't think bringing in lebron james is going to solve their problems maybe it will maybe it will i think i don't know i think they have a bigger problem almost in joelle and bead who has not been healthy in whom they have paid a lot of money to because it's hard not to when you have somebody who's as good yeah as joelle and bead i think um this comes down once again to company to to teams as companies and i think that um what we've seen in recent years in the nba but also just kind of makes sense from like a human management perspective is building a team where it's sort of clear who the leaders are and then you bring people in to support them who are okay with their roles i think you've got a lot of guys who are kind of the guy on this team yeah and i think especially and and i do think lebron is probably going to be willing to do whatever it takes i feel like his ego he has satisfied in so many ways in every possible way i could see him being like no no i am just here for the team i think something interesting that that i don't know if i've seen people talking as much about last year tyrese maxi i believe called a player meeting because joelle and bead was late to practice often and so it feels like there is already a little bit of um maybe not the full cohesion that you need um to win a championship yeah but again i'm not in that locker room i don't know um it just feels like this is kind of a bygone era of stacking together instead of a homegrown team from from draft or sort of underrated people you've put together. Yeah, I mean, look at the Knicks. I'm sorry, but it's true. That's our most recent example. That wasn't a bunch of stars. It wasn't a bunch of LeBron Jameses on the Knicks. Everyone knew Jalen Brunson was the star. Sorry, but it's true. And it worked. It worked. What are you gonna do, sue me? Sorry, I'm a sicko. What if I sued you? What if I was like, "Yeah, I'm hiring a lawyer. You're being served. I know where you live. -I'm serving you." -Gag order me. -I'm not talking about that. -I'm serving you. I'm gonna say, cease and desist. But I do think, just thinking of the most recent example of how important team cohesion is and people knowing their roles, and it working. It's like, I mean, I'm just like, I would love for this to work with LeBron. But I'm like, "Really, guys? You think this is what's gonna work?" -I mean, maybe it will, but-- - No, I know. You look at the Spurs, you look at the Thunder, these young teams with so much talent. Um, but, you know, I think, I think it would be, the most exciting thing here would be to be proven wrong. -Yes. -The most exciting thing would be if LeBron actually manages to do this with Billy. Also, something that we haven't talked about on this show is my feelings about the Jalen Brown situation. Uh, in which Boston managed to get Paul George for Jalen Brown. Paul George is a man who has been hurt, and he's old. And I could say that 'cause he's my age. -Yeah. -Um, maybe, like, a year younger. So I'm just old. -Older. -Yeah. And, and it, and it just, it's not, it's not good. -It's not great. -It's bad. As a Celtics fan, I'm pretty pissed. I think it has to do with salary and private equity, and that is something else we can get into. But we, we shall see. Also, a little Celtics drama, Jason Tatum was at a camp. -Yes. -And he said, "If someone thinks they're the smartest guy in the room, I don't wanna be around them." And this is after reports of Jalen Brown, quote, "Being, thinking he's the smartest guy in the room." Who knows? Could've been a throwaway line. -Mm. -But it, but it sure is, it sure is a line. Well, what I will say is, we are primed for a very dramatic season. -Mm! -I'm already ready. I mean, this has all happened in the off season. I just can't imagine what it's gonna be like once the season starts. I mean, I, this is, this is what we dream of. -It really is. -This is, this is the stuff we dream of. These are storylines, these are, uh, these are former teammates, these are long-time foes, -turned teammates. -Yeah. It's crazy. This is, this is the stuff of-- This is the good stuff, folks. This is the good stuff. -You know what else? -What else? -Oh, what? -Someone said, "Well, they can now--" If you're on the East Coast-- -Oh, yes! -I feel like I haven't, you know, I haven't, we haven't watched a ton of LeBron sin-- I, personally, me living on the East Coast the whole time since he was on the Lakers because they play their games -so late. -No, it's true. But now, we're gonna get -LeBron James games. -I can't wait. -Regularly. -I can't wait. And you know what we probably will also get regularly? -What? -I already told you about this, and this would probably be another episode, but just start noticing, everyone, dear shareholders out there, LeBron James' Instagram content. Because he has been posting more and more inspirational quotes and weird AI-generated imagery, a la Tom Brady, that it's just interesting. -Well-- -And I think he's maybe taken a page out of another GOAT's social media playbook. And I think that we're probably gonna have to do a full episode on that. -I think we may need to. -I will say that, um, Jalen Brown reposted one of the same, quote, -Instagrams that LeBron James posted. -Stop. -He's like, "We're aligned." -Yeah, I guess-- -The messaging is aligned. -The messaging is-- literally couldn't be more aligned. Well, the public perceptors are trying to make-- they are saying, "We are all on the same page here." That's what the-- that's the company line. And you know what? Okay, let's see how it goes. Let's see how it goes. Well. -Is that our show? -I think that's our show, folks. As always, please rate, review, like, subscribe. It makes a huge, huge difference. You can follow us on Instagram @sportsgossip and TikTok @sportsgossipshow. You can subscribe to our sub stack at sportsgossipshow.substack.com. And you can buy merch linked below. -Boom. -And that's it. -Okay. Bye. -Okay. Thank you.