Speaker 1: I was in Orlando before Miami, and I came straight
Speaker 1: to Miami. And I've been here for like twenty nine
Speaker 1: thirty years, and Miami raised me. And Miami is what
Speaker 1: I flag, that I wave and that I breathe, and
Speaker 1: I believe everything is Miami.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You know, Miami, We just different. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like we special, We confident, and you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: this would love.
Speaker 4: We don't see.
Speaker 1: Nobody me And he asked in like, we Miami.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: That In case you didn't recognize, the voice was famed DJ,
Speaker 5: record producer, record executive, rapper and Miami Heat superfan DJ Khaled.
Speaker 6: Why start a podcast about.
Speaker 5: One of the more intriguing teams in NBA history with
Speaker 5: a musical artist raving about the city.
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, why not?
Speaker 5: There'll be plenty more of that unmistakable voice throughout by
Speaker 5: the way. Second, because this Heat team's story wasn't just
Speaker 5: about high profile teammates getting together to reach an extremely
Speaker 5: lofty goal. It had the secondary effect of elevating a
Speaker 5: franchise and an entire city.
Speaker 6: Along the way.
Speaker 5: There might be some of you listening right now who
Speaker 5: only learned of Kalid because of that Heat fandom. There
Speaker 5: are definitely some of you listening who only know who
Speaker 5: I am largely because of that Miami Heat team. I'm
Speaker 5: your host, Israel Gutierrez, and I, like Khaled, was raised
Speaker 5: by Miami. I've lived here since I was two years old,
Speaker 5: growing up a fan of all the local teams, which
Speaker 5: started with only the Dolphins but then eventually expanded to
Speaker 5: the Heat, Panthers, and Marlins. I became a journalist after
Speaker 5: graduating from the University of Florida and fortunately never had
Speaker 5: to leave South Florida. When I began my professional career
Speaker 5: in two thousand, the same teams I grew up watching
Speaker 5: and cheering for I suddenly had to cover as an
Speaker 5: objective journalist. By twenty ten, I'd covered the Heat as
Speaker 5: a beat writer for seven years and had been a
Speaker 5: columnist at the Miami Herald for three. That's ten years
Speaker 5: as a professional to tag onto another decade of just
Speaker 5: being a Miami fan, and nothing, absolutely nothing could have
Speaker 5: prepared me or any Miami native, frankly, for what was
Speaker 5: on the way. It's the start of twenty ten, and
Speaker 5: Miami was about to host its tenth Super Bowl and
Speaker 5: second in four years. Miami as a city was comfortable
Speaker 5: being at the center of the sports landscape, but mostly
Speaker 5: as a host to outside teams and their fans, Fans
Speaker 5: looking to get kissed by the sun and possibly experience
Speaker 5: a twenty four hour nightclub in between cheering on their teams.
Speaker 6: Rare was the occasion.
Speaker 5: Where Miami's own sports would garner the type of attention
Speaker 5: that caught the nation's eye for any length of time,
Speaker 5: and in twenty ten, Miami was in one of those
Speaker 5: sleepy sports cycles where there wasn't much to look at.
Speaker 5: The Florida Panthers were in the midst of their ninth
Speaker 5: straight season missing the playoffs. The Florida Marlins were only
Speaker 5: seven years removed from a second World Series in team history,
Speaker 5: but were about to start a seventh straight season without
Speaker 5: reaching the postseason again. And the Miami Dolphins were in
Speaker 5: the second year of a seven year stretch with no playoffs.
Speaker 5: Then there were the Miami Heat. The Heat had won
Speaker 5: the championship in two thousand and six in the second
Speaker 5: season after Shaquille O'Neill blessed the town with championship legitimacy,
Speaker 5: and in the third season of now superstar Dwayne Wade,
Speaker 5: who the Heat drafted in two thousand and three, But
Speaker 5: that flash of sports supremacy faded quickly as Shak's relationship
Speaker 5: with the organization deteriorated, and he was traded to Phoenix
Speaker 5: in two thousand and eight after only three plus seasons
Speaker 5: with the Heat. In the few years that followed their championship,
Speaker 5: Wade had won a scoring title in two thousand and
Speaker 5: nine and was third in MVP voting. He was matching
Speaker 5: or surpassing the best players in the league with his performances,
Speaker 5: but he also happened to play the same shooting guard
Speaker 5: position as Kobe Bryant, the Lakers legend who had won
Speaker 5: four titles that would win his fifth in twenty ten.
Speaker 5: Even as Wade was leading the eight Olympic team in scoring,
Speaker 5: it was Kobe who received most of the adoration and
Speaker 5: all of the starting nods for the gold medal winning
Speaker 5: Redeem team. What the Miami Heat organization did over the
Speaker 5: next four years to maximize their success with Wade, who
Speaker 5: was still in his prime, was simply builled one of
Speaker 5: the most dynamic, controversial, explosive, exciting, successful, and unforgettable teams
Speaker 5: in sports history. Teaming with Wade would be Lebron James,
Speaker 5: the game's best player, and Chris Bosh, another highly skilled
Speaker 5: All Star with championship aspirations.
Speaker 6: It was a joining of forces so.
Speaker 5: Surprising it was difficult to believe it even as it
Speaker 5: was happening. It was a team so immediately rich with
Speaker 5: high end talent and even more pressurized expectations, it would
Speaker 5: almost be impossible to sustain for any extended length of time.
Speaker 5: This wasn't just about an organization cashing in while it
Speaker 5: could for some additional gold trophies. It was now about
Speaker 5: a responsibility to the game of basketball to make sure
Speaker 5: this worked. To make sure Lebron, a player who many
Speaker 5: already predicted could rival the greatest of all time, would
Speaker 5: finally break through and start his run toward basketball immortality
Speaker 5: that only can truly begin with an NBA championship, to
Speaker 5: make sure Wade and Bosh cement their Hall of Fame
Speaker 5: careers with multiple rings. It was a team that, if
Speaker 5: it worked, would revive a city and more importantly, empower
Speaker 5: and encourage other players to take more control of their
Speaker 5: careers and change the NBA forever. And little did anyone
Speaker 5: really know at the time, but Miami would have a
Speaker 5: limited amount of time to complete all of that.
Speaker 6: Four years of.
Speaker 5: Heat and yes, I said the name of the podcast,
Speaker 5: four years of a team that ran so hot it
Speaker 5: probably couldn't last much longer than it actually did. Dan
Speaker 5: Lebttard has been writing and talking about sports in his
Speaker 5: hometown of Miami for portions.
Speaker 6: Of four decades.
Speaker 5: He's attended the University of Miami. He's written for the
Speaker 5: Miami Herald, written and worked on television and radio for ESPN,
Speaker 5: and currently is running his own media company, meatal Ark Media,
Speaker 5: highlighted by its signature podcast, The Dan Lebotard Show with
Speaker 5: Stu Goatts. There might not be a better person to
Speaker 5: paint the picture of the Miami sports landscape than Lebtard.
Speaker 5: The Heat had experienced the most consistent success of the
Speaker 5: pro sports teams in town, but not enough to stand
Speaker 5: out amongst more established winners.
Speaker 7: Miami had established itself as a town that had at
Speaker 7: Riley and before Dwayne Wade, Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway, and
Speaker 7: so there had been some winning, but basketball was not
Speaker 7: dominating this town. Even in failure, which the Dolphins had
Speaker 7: plenty of, the Dolphins were still the thing in the
Speaker 7: town and the star power of the team. The furthest
Speaker 7: it went was Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway. Those were
Speaker 7: the successful teams, the ones that would always die at
Speaker 7: Michael Jordan's doorstep. It wasn't a champion, It was largely
Speaker 7: a regional team, not a national one, and locally, this
Speaker 7: was absolutely not a basketball town. Liked basketball, but basketball
Speaker 7: probably was behind baseball and football.
Speaker 5: Back then, Wade had known the ultimate success, both as
Speaker 5: an individual and with his team, but in his seventh
Speaker 5: NBA season, he'd been chasing that championship feeling again for
Speaker 5: a few years now. A seven game first round series
Speaker 5: lost to the Atlanta Hawks and nine was nice, but
Speaker 5: nowhere near the thrill he'd get from facing those Detroit
Speaker 5: Pistons teams deep into the playoffs just a few years prior.
Speaker 8: Shot Cock is off.
Speaker 9: We'll dribble it out.
Speaker 6: For the first time in franchise history.
Speaker 10: The Miami Heat are going to the NBA Finals.
Speaker 5: Wade knew what basketball at its highest level felt like.
Speaker 5: He wanted that again, and there was one game in
Speaker 5: particular in twenty ten, in the middle of a season
Speaker 5: that was far short of special from Miami that reminded
Speaker 5: him of what that felt like and maybe even gave
Speaker 5: us a glimpse of what kind of basketball wizardry was
Speaker 5: headed toward the three to zero five. It was a
Speaker 5: game between the Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers and what was
Speaker 5: then still called American Airlines Arena, and it featured a
Speaker 5: matchup of redeemed team pals Wade and Lebron James.
Speaker 4: I still talk about that game today when people asked me, like,
Speaker 4: what was your favorite kind of game in the NBA?
Speaker 5: That's all Mario Vernard Chalmers. You might just know him
Speaker 5: as Mario Chalmers, a collegiate champion at Kansas who was
Speaker 5: in his second year in the league in twenty ten
Speaker 5: and started about a quarter of the Heats games at
Speaker 5: point guard.
Speaker 4: And that was like the one time I felt myself
Speaker 4: as a player being in the moment and I'll just
Speaker 4: want to watch, like I don't I don't want to
Speaker 4: do anything but watch Lebron go this way, d Wade
Speaker 4: go that way. And that's what I was just like, Wow,
Speaker 4: He's like, this is what it takes to be a
Speaker 4: superstar league. This is why these guys are stars, And
Speaker 4: like I was really starstruck in that moment in the.
Speaker 5: Game That game was on January twenty fifth, twenty ten.
Speaker 5: Wade in the Heat were in the middle of a
Speaker 5: forty seven wins season that would earn them the fifth
Speaker 5: seed in the playoffs, while Lebron was in the midst
Speaker 5: of his second straight MVP season on a Cabs team
Speaker 5: that would lead the league with sixty one wins. There
Speaker 5: wasn't quite love in the air that night, but there
Speaker 5: wasn't nearly as much venom for an opponent as usual.
Speaker 5: In fact, it would be Lebron's last visit to Miami
Speaker 5: before his free agency that offseason, so the fans were
Speaker 5: a little extra friendly to help court the King a
Speaker 5: few months early, bringing signs that would hope to get
Speaker 5: his attention. A few of the signs looked professionally executed,
Speaker 5: with the most memorable one being a fake Facebook page
Speaker 5: with Lebron's status as in the relationship with the Miami Heat.
Speaker 5: A little more than halfway through the second quarter, Wade
Speaker 5: and James put on a back and forth duel.
Speaker 6: That builds legends.
Speaker 5: This was the jaw dropping stretch of game Chalmers was
Speaker 5: talking about. James and Wade already had a few moments
Speaker 5: in this showcase of stars but with five eleven left
Speaker 5: in the first half, Lebron unknowingly started the memorable exchange
Speaker 5: by dunking on Wade and.
Speaker 11: Another steal this hoop by Paris show here comes James again.
Speaker 11: The freak trainers left the state to exports for the
Speaker 11: term of foul on Twainne Wade.
Speaker 10: Oh my Wade was float.
Speaker 6: He was going up for a light up.
Speaker 11: Lebron dunked the ball, Wade jumped up with two hands
Speaker 11: trying to block it.
Speaker 10: He gets the foul.
Speaker 6: What a move by Lebron.
Speaker 11: James, giving the Cavaliers their first lead of the game,
Speaker 11: a nineteen to four run, and the explosion by James.
Speaker 12: Wow.
Speaker 5: Wade never took well to being on the wrong end
Speaker 5: of a highlight play, so the very next play he
Speaker 5: drew foul and hit two free throws.
Speaker 6: After that, a pair of.
Speaker 5: Lebron free throws, and then two of the most dynamic
Speaker 5: athletes in the game decided to put on a shooting
Speaker 5: display that gave this regular season game an all star field.
Speaker 11: Oh baby, three point offul way that he got bowled.
Speaker 11: Oh James answers back with a free ball, and with
Speaker 11: these two guys, it's anything you can do. I can
Speaker 11: do better. It's on a game, coach, and it started early.
Speaker 11: Wade with twenty three, James with sixteen. Here he goes again.
Speaker 5: Oh man, the crowd trying to egg on Dwayne Wade
Speaker 5: just should come back again.
Speaker 11: Now Here it comes, Wade colliding with Vanish out one
Speaker 11: of the great individual shows you will ever see. It's
Speaker 11: an instant classic shot clock at six Wade against Parker.
Speaker 11: There's a three, and there's your third baby. Oh man,
Speaker 11: who Dwayne Wade's best scoring half of the year, thirty?
Speaker 11: Here he goes three on the way and what else
Speaker 11: would you expect? What else would you expect from Lebron
Speaker 11: James their way from the backcourt.
Speaker 6: Oh man, don't take your eye off this game.
Speaker 11: Wade and James sheer smile and how could you not
Speaker 11: enjoy it?
Speaker 13: Right along with.
Speaker 5: Him, Wade literally skipped off the floor on his way
Speaker 5: to the halftime locker room after sharing a glance and
Speaker 5: a smile with Lebron. That high level of basketball he'd
Speaker 5: been so familiar with was back on that Monday night
Speaker 5: in Miami, and his friend Lebron providing all the counterpunches
Speaker 5: made him feel alive again.
Speaker 14: You know, their competition is great at then they you know,
Speaker 14: we understand it's a team game, you know, and I
Speaker 14: think second hand I proved there. But you know, it's
Speaker 14: moments within the game where you know, you take on
Speaker 14: the competition of it. You know, it's it's it's a
Speaker 14: little bit of anything you can do, I can do better,
Speaker 14: you know, count of competition for a little while, and
Speaker 14: it's fun for the fans. And you know, long as
Speaker 14: we're not doing anything outside of what our team wants
Speaker 14: to do, it's good for our team. So, you know,
Speaker 14: probably one of the best second quarters that I've had,
Speaker 14: and you know, just back and forth was good.
Speaker 11: Four point one seconds left of the fourth quarter, Miami
Speaker 11: trailing ninety two to ninety one. He will have Clinton
Speaker 11: Richardson in bound. He's got Jermaine o'nial all stood Wade
Speaker 11: at Haslam and here we go. Wade catches it guarded
Speaker 11: by James for the win, Miami's fifth one point game
Speaker 11: and their second one point loss.
Speaker 5: Wade in the home crowd left slightly disappointed, but feeling
Speaker 5: like they'd made their point to one Lebron James.
Speaker 6: Fast forward to the end of that season. The Heat
Speaker 6: had just.
Speaker 5: Been knocked out of the playoffs as the number five
Speaker 5: seed by the fourth seeded Boston Celtics. It was the
Speaker 5: second consecutive first round exit from Miami, and this one
Speaker 5: didn't even include the seven game drama that the previous
Speaker 5: year series against Atlanta managed. In five games, Wade had
Speaker 5: just averaged thirty three point two points on fifty six
Speaker 5: percent shooting, including forty percent from three, with six point
Speaker 5: eight assists five point six rebounds, but could manage only
Speaker 5: one win in the series against the Celtics. On the
Speaker 5: postgame podium in a makeshift press conference in the bowels
Speaker 5: of Boston's TD Garden, Wade made a declaration so confident
Speaker 5: it had some wondering if that was more than just
Speaker 5: a superstar believing in himself.
Speaker 14: H Like I said before the playoffs started, this this
Speaker 14: playoff run and drive, I had no indication on my decision.
Speaker 14: I'm going for Well, this will be my last first
Speaker 14: round exit for a while, I'll tell you that. So
Speaker 14: I'm looking forward to, you know, continue to build and
Speaker 14: being with some great players next year.
Speaker 5: Tim Reynolds has been covering the Miami Heat since the
Speaker 5: two thousand and two oh three season, the last before
Speaker 5: Wade was drafted. By this point, he'd grown close enough
Speaker 5: to Wade to know there was extra meaning behind that statement.
Speaker 2: When Dames staffer at the podium in Boston and said that,
Speaker 2: I'm like, hmm, okay, there's something to it.
Speaker 5: Two rounds later, there was another disappointed superstar sending signals.
Speaker 5: The Celtics had just knocked Lebron James out of the
Speaker 5: playoffs in six games. James was playing through a bulky
Speaker 5: elbow and ended the deciding Game six with twenty seven points,
Speaker 5: nineteen rebounds, ten assists, and nine turnos, but.
Speaker 6: Boston Selfix were the huge upset. They advanced to the conference.
Speaker 10: Finals, and Lebron james season is over?
Speaker 6: Is his career in Cleveland over?
Speaker 5: As he walked off the floor and into the tunnel
Speaker 5: leading to the Cavs locker room, James took off his
Speaker 5: Cavalier's jersey, and once he entered the locker room, casually
Speaker 5: flipped it to an attendant.
Speaker 11: Cleveland fans wondering if that's the last time he'll take
Speaker 11: off a Cavalier jersey?
Speaker 6: What did it mean? Everyone wanted to know.
Speaker 5: In less than two months time, Lebron would be an
Speaker 5: unrestricted free agent for the first time. Following seven years
Speaker 5: in Cleveland, his adopted city after growing up in nearby Akron, Ohio,
Speaker 5: James would have to make the most difficult decision of
Speaker 5: his professional career, the answer to the.
Speaker 15: Question everybody wants to know, Lebron, What's your decision?
Speaker 6: Jim Gray is a media sports legend.
Speaker 5: He's interviewed icons of sports like Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan,
Speaker 5: Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Kobe.
Speaker 6: Bryant, and Mike Tyson.
Speaker 5: Once famously, with a broken back spinal, he wrote a
Speaker 5: book called Talking to Goats, The Moments You Remember and
Speaker 5: the Stories You Never Heard, and among the subjects was Lebron.
Speaker 5: James Gray had known Lebron from his days covering him
Speaker 5: in high school to his early NBA days. Gray would
Speaker 5: also fly to Lebron's hometown of Akron, Ohio to cover
Speaker 5: the annual PGA Firestone Golf Tournament, where he would also
Speaker 5: visit with Maverick Carter, Lebron's longtime friend and business manager
Speaker 5: since two thousand and six, and other associates of Lebron,
Speaker 5: including the other founders of their agency and sports marketing firm,
Speaker 5: lrimr Rich Paul and Randy Mims. Of all the interviews
Speaker 5: Gray has completed in his career. He would have one
Speaker 5: nationally televised event with Lebron that would become one of
Speaker 5: his most controversial. James chose to air his free agency
Speaker 5: decision live on ESPN the evening of July eighth, twenty ten,
Speaker 5: in the form of a one hour special. The Decision,
Speaker 5: as the show was called, peaked at more than thirteen
Speaker 5: million viewers. As Lebron would announce his choice. About halfway
Speaker 5: into the special, I talked with Jim about how that
Speaker 5: option came about and whether or not he thought that
Speaker 5: interview would set in motion such a wave of hatred
Speaker 5: toward the best basketball player in the game. It began
Speaker 5: with a conversation at an NBA Finals game in Los
Speaker 5: Angeles in twenty ten between Gray and Carter.
Speaker 12: I just saw Maverick Carter that evening of a playoff
Speaker 12: game sitting with Ari Emmanuel, who was the head of
Speaker 12: William Morris Endeavor, And they were sitting in Ari's front
Speaker 12: row seats and the Lakers were playing, and I walked
Speaker 12: down and saw him at halftime and shook his hand,
Speaker 12: and I said, Hey, Mav, would it be possible to
Speaker 12: do the first interview with Lebron after he chooses his team,
Speaker 12: and he said, I would consider that, And then it
Speaker 12: just out of nowhere, I kind of said, and you know,
Speaker 12: perhaps we should just do an hour special and have
Speaker 12: him announce it on the air. What's the difference between
Speaker 12: that in a press conference? You know, let him make
Speaker 12: his own announcement. And Ari said, that's a brilliant idea,
Speaker 12: and Mavericks said, right then, he said, you know, we
Speaker 12: could probably raise a bunch of money for charity.
Speaker 5: For full context, the idea of Lebron announcing his decision
Speaker 5: in that public a manner was mentioned in a mail
Speaker 5: bag column by noted Boston sports fan Bill Simmons. A
Speaker 5: reader named Drew Wagner was inspired by high school recruits
Speaker 5: announcing their college choices live on television and recommended a
Speaker 5: live show on ABC called Lebron's Choice. But it wouldn't
Speaker 5: be Simmons who executed the plan. Gray brought it up
Speaker 5: to Carter at that Finals game, and Carter convinced Lebron
Speaker 5: to do it, while the Manual pitched the idea to
Speaker 5: then ESPN president John Skipper.
Speaker 12: We had an opportunity to possibly put it on NBC
Speaker 12: because I had worked at NBC on the NBA for
Speaker 12: a long time, and Maverick ultimately felt that it should
Speaker 12: be with one of the NBA carriers ESPN, ABC or Turner,
Speaker 12: and that was fine, and so they eventually worked something
Speaker 12: out with ESPN and with John Skipper to take over
Speaker 12: the time, and we raised six and a half million
Speaker 12: dollars for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and
Speaker 12: it's still, i believe, to this day, the largest contribution
Speaker 12: that has ever been made to that organization and has
Speaker 12: helped the lives of countless, hundreds of thousands of kids.
Speaker 12: Skipper was very young ho because he knew the amount
Speaker 12: of attention that this was going to garner and he
Speaker 12: was one hundred percent behind that because it represented the
Speaker 12: largest audience they'd ever had for a television show, not
Speaker 12: for a live event, for a television show, which which
Speaker 12: I believe still holds up to this day, for a show,
Speaker 12: you know, not to be confused with a Monday night
Speaker 12: football game or perhaps an NBA you know, playoff game
Speaker 12: or something of that ill, but for a one off
Speaker 12: show for that hour.
Speaker 16: You know, he knew just how much people would watch.
Speaker 12: It, and he knew, you know, that it would be
Speaker 12: it would be must see TV.
Speaker 5: ESPN assigned Gray a producer he was familiar with, and
Speaker 5: they went over Gray's interview, questions and plans for the show.
Speaker 5: The next day, Gray met with Lebron and his associates
Speaker 5: for some promotional photos and then drove from a nearby
Speaker 5: home to the Boys and Girls Club in Gretich, Connecticut.
Speaker 5: With them was Lebron's then girlfriend and now wife, Savannah Brinson.
Speaker 5: Gray said the ride was largely quiet, in part because
Speaker 5: he himself asked not to know what team Lebron was
Speaker 5: choosing ahead of time.
Speaker 12: I did not want to know what his decision was.
Speaker 12: I intentionally told Maverick, told Lebron and told Leon Rose,
Speaker 12: do not tell me because I didn't want to know.
Speaker 16: I wanted it to be real, at least from my end.
Speaker 12: And I also didn't want to be the one who
Speaker 12: accidentally blurts this out, because anything can happen. You know,
Speaker 12: somebody's talking to your So I just didn't want to know.
Speaker 12: I wanted to know when the audience knew.
Speaker 6: Quick pause, we already know.
Speaker 5: There's no way to truly have predicted how negative the
Speaker 5: response was to Lebron airing this decision. The purity of
Speaker 5: the idea raising millions for the Boys and Girls Club
Speaker 5: of America while announcing information everyone is dying to know.
Speaker 5: It's really hard to dispute. How could anyone truly see
Speaker 5: the level of vitriol that would follow such a selfless
Speaker 5: act of charity. Well, a few folks did. Jackie McMullen
Speaker 5: was one. Jackie is a now retired NBA writer who
Speaker 5: worked for The Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated and ESPN, among
Speaker 5: other media outlets along the way. She not only saw
Speaker 5: that an hour special for a ten second announcement seemed
Speaker 5: like ego inflated overkill, but she called the move unfathomable
Speaker 5: on ESPN News the night before the decision.
Speaker 17: I was actually in Bristol, Connecticut for a couple of
Speaker 17: days in advance of the decision, and I remember going
Speaker 17: on the air I think it was live, and saying,
Speaker 17: don't do this. The self importance of thinking that your
Speaker 17: decision is more important than any decision ever made in
Speaker 17: the history of the NBA. Now think about it. At
Speaker 17: that point, Lebron has won exactly nothing. Now he's gone
Speaker 17: on to be arguably the greatest or one of the greatest,
Speaker 17: depending on where you land. Players of all time. He
Speaker 17: certainly proved us wrong in terms of his own self worth.
Speaker 17: If you will, and you know, but in that moment,
Speaker 17: do not tell Cleveland what you were doing until moments
Speaker 17: before you told everybody else, or in some cases, I
Speaker 17: think moments after you told everybody else. I just didn't
Speaker 17: understand the logic behind that.
Speaker 5: Just one day before the decision, Dwayne Wade and Chris
Speaker 5: Bosh had already announced their free agency choice. They did
Speaker 5: it live on ESPN exclusively in an interview with a
Speaker 5: respected journalist, Michael Wilbot. They announced they'd be playing in Miami, Wade,
Speaker 5: of course, resigning, and Bosh leaving Toronto, the only team
Speaker 5: he'd known for seven seasons. Sound familiar.
Speaker 18: We're gonna cut right to the chase, Dwayne and Chris.
Speaker 16: Dwayne will start with you, where are you gonna be
Speaker 16: playing next season?
Speaker 13: Well, I'm back in Miami, man, I'm back in as now.
Speaker 14: So now I'm back in Wade County, back.
Speaker 16: In Miami with the heat.
Speaker 11: Chris, you want to jump in and tell us where
Speaker 11: you're gonna be as well.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I'm joining mister Wade in Miami. These final decisions, God,
Speaker 13: you don't have to say, go.
Speaker 8: On until tomorrow.
Speaker 16: Is there we will room?
Speaker 12: Could somebody else come and steal you between now and then?
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean I'm fine. I think we're both fine
Speaker 13: with this situation. We wanted to play with each other
Speaker 13: and we have a golden opportunity to do that. So, uh,
Speaker 13: we're going to take advantage of him.
Speaker 6: And thanks to ESPN for that clip.
Speaker 5: They didn't raise money for charity with the announcement, but
Speaker 5: it was just fifteen minutes, still longer than it needed
Speaker 5: to be, and it got no such negative public reaction
Speaker 5: that would all be saved up for Lebron regardless. And
Speaker 5: Gray could see in Lebron's eyes that evening that he
Speaker 5: felt the weight of his words.
Speaker 12: And I could see that Lebron was pensive. I could
Speaker 12: see that, you know, he wasn't nervous, and he wasn't anxious,
Speaker 12: but you could see that there was a lot on
Speaker 12: his mind and that this weight was going to be
Speaker 12: lifted from his shoulders, or that that that he was
Speaker 12: going to have to carry was going to get heavier.
Speaker 12: So you know, it was really really a juxtaposition because
Speaker 12: it could be one or the other.
Speaker 5: If this was some ego soaked choice for Lebron. It
Speaker 5: certainly didn't come across on camera. He sounded careful and
Speaker 5: looked like he wanted no real part of the cameras.
Speaker 15: The answer to the question everybody wants to know, Lebron,
Speaker 15: what's your decision?
Speaker 9: And this fall, man, it's very tough, And this fall,
Speaker 9: I'm gonna take my talents to Southern Beach and join
Speaker 9: the Miami Heat.
Speaker 15: Miami Heat. That was the conclusion he woke up with
Speaker 15: this morning.
Speaker 9: That was the conclusion I woke up with this morning.
Speaker 6: Thanks again to ESPN for that sound.
Speaker 5: His choice of words were famously mocked, despite the fact
Speaker 5: that the taking my talents phrasing was just him parroting
Speaker 5: his good pal and respected vet Kobe Bryant's words from
Speaker 5: when he left high school and announced his NBA plans.
Speaker 18: Kobe Bryant, I've decided my talents to no I had
Speaker 18: decided to skip college and take my talent in the NBA.
Speaker 5: Well, it's hard to imagine even Lebron would be prepared
Speaker 5: for a nation of sports fans to temporarily despise him.
Speaker 5: Gray believes Lebron's destination of choice was a source of comfort.
Speaker 16: Not knowing how it was going to be received.
Speaker 12: Obviously, I think he was very happy because he was
Speaker 12: going to a place that he wanted to go.
Speaker 16: He had made that decision to.
Speaker 12: Go with with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh and pat
Speaker 12: Riley and the Miami Heat and to move on from
Speaker 12: territory that he had been in his entire life and
Speaker 12: things that were very comfortable, and he was, you know,
Speaker 12: going to take that next step. And in many ways
Speaker 12: it was you know, the recruiting that he had never
Speaker 12: had because he didn't participate in college and go through
Speaker 12: all of that. And it was also you know, this
Speaker 12: was the moment of player empowerment. Okay, he took over
Speaker 12: his own rights and with that, as the most powerful
Speaker 12: and best player in the NBA, he carried the entire
Speaker 12: Players Association and everybody else with him. Everybody was, you know,
Speaker 12: at his mercy and so he took all of the
Speaker 12: slings and arrows for that. And you have to take
Speaker 12: into account the fans are hurt in Cleveland, and we
Speaker 12: could have done better for the fans in Cleveland, and
Speaker 12: we could have been more sensitive to the feelings that
Speaker 12: they were having of abandonment and of losing you know,
Speaker 12: their their homegrown Son. So yeah, there were areas where
Speaker 12: we certainly could have done better, but overall, looking back
Speaker 12: on that show, it was landmark, It was precedent setting,
Speaker 12: and it changed.
Speaker 16: The whole paradigm.
Speaker 5: Paradigm shifts didn't stop with just free agency announcements. The
Speaker 5: whole NBA model had shifted. Suddenly, even the best player
Speaker 5: in the sport playing for an organization closest to his
Speaker 5: hometown could leave for another organization and possibly plan ahead
Speaker 5: for that to happen, reaching across the country, across the
Speaker 5: continent to select new superstar teammates, then choosing the organization
Speaker 5: best suited to house them. All that was new, and
Speaker 5: it was a start. Contrast to the Chicago bulls archetype
Speaker 5: went it with Michael Jordan as the clear best player
Speaker 5: and do it for the organization that drafted you. This
Speaker 5: Miami Heat collection was all already starting to feel unfair, unnecessary,
Speaker 5: even for a player of Lebron's caliber. Then, with less
Speaker 5: than twenty four hours to digest what just happened to
Speaker 5: NBA basketball, and while most people outside of Scorn Cleveland
Speaker 5: were still fully forming their opinions on the matter, the
Speaker 5: Heat and their news signees would do something that would
Speaker 5: spread insufferable thoughts to the rest of the country.
Speaker 11: They celebrated not one championship, not lebron tell us about.
Speaker 9: That, not two, not three, not four, not five.
Speaker 5: James, Wade, and Boss were all in Miami, both to
Speaker 5: party at a South Florida nightclub into the early morning
Speaker 5: on July ninth, and to rejoice with fans inside American
Speaker 5: Airlines Arena for a presentation and interview. Everywhere inside and
Speaker 5: outside the arena, fans held signs with the three superstars
Speaker 5: pictured and a slogan that played off President Barack Obama's
Speaker 5: two thousand and eight campaign slogan yes we can reading
Speaker 5: Yes we Did. After what seemed like hours of fans
Speaker 5: gathering in the arena to a constant buzz of excitement
Speaker 5: and random chance, the Miami Heats three game changing free
Speaker 5: agents signings were brought onto the stage from a platform underneath.
Speaker 5: Bosh's reaction upon seeing the crowd was to let out
Speaker 5: a roar that would become his signature celebratory move in Miami.
Speaker 5: He soaked it all in, not even considering the consequences
Speaker 5: at the time.
Speaker 6: Neither did the heat.
Speaker 5: Frankly, because that party wasn't planned to announce all three
Speaker 5: of those players. It wasn't put together in less than
Speaker 5: twenty four hours. It was put together weeks earlier to
Speaker 5: announce the signing of Wade. That wouldn't have felt anything
Speaker 5: like this did. All that was missing in this celebration
Speaker 5: in the minds of critics were actual Larry O'Brien championship
Speaker 5: trophies for what was such a premature celebration. You want
Speaker 5: to know if people were assuming too much success once
Speaker 5: these three joint forces. Hip hop artist and a regular
Speaker 5: at Big Miami Heat games, Flow Rida, dropped a song
Speaker 5: called we already won right after the announcements.
Speaker 6: We already what. They don't neither play norball game.
Speaker 5: Man, you say, it was a night intended just for
Speaker 5: Miami to celebrate something that just doesn't happen to this city,
Speaker 5: at least not in terms of sports, and in that moment,
Speaker 5: the Heat's players were in a bubble of support. Still
Speaker 5: in the clouds over the previous twenty some hours of
Speaker 5: celebration for Bosh, the regrets were there, but certainly not immediately.
Speaker 5: Bosh spoke with JJ Reddick about that night on his
Speaker 5: Old Man in the Three podcast.
Speaker 10: I've always wanted to ask one of you guys, do
Speaker 10: you guys ever regret or have you ever talked about
Speaker 10: doing the victory parade?
Speaker 12: Uh?
Speaker 10: Before you guys ever played a game together when you
Speaker 10: guys all came out on stage, like, was that a
Speaker 10: mistake in retrospect? Was maybe that brought a little bit
Speaker 10: of that animosity on you.
Speaker 8: Can look at it. Yeah, yeah, the animosity totally one
Speaker 8: hundred percent. But people have to understand we didn't organize that.
Speaker 8: If they said, Yo, we're signing JJ Reddick tomorrow and
Speaker 8: it's twenty thousand people there, you're not going to be like, nah,
Speaker 8: let's just yo. No, hey, pull the plug. No, we're
Speaker 8: not doing this. You're not going to do that. We
Speaker 8: went right along with everything that was going on, and
Speaker 8: I just found out that the only reason that stage
Speaker 8: was there is because I think I forgot who had
Speaker 8: a concert. Somebody had a concert. Was in between concerts.
Speaker 8: They were doing three days or something like that, a
Speaker 8: three day stretch, so the stage was still there.
Speaker 16: So we got there.
Speaker 8: They're like, yo, yeah, but come on bro, They like Yo,
Speaker 8: we get there, They're like, Yo, look we got the stage.
Speaker 8: You guys coming up right here. I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 8: it's like your dreams coming true.
Speaker 13: You know.
Speaker 8: With that said, we did not empathize or even consider.
Speaker 8: It was like Miami was a bubble bro. We didn't
Speaker 8: think of anything outside. We were just like stage hell yeah,
Speaker 8: interview nailed it. I mean, well it yeah bro, he
Speaker 8: you know, went right. It was just bro thing to
Speaker 8: think parties legendary, you know what I mean. We're living
Speaker 8: out of a hotel, you.
Speaker 17: Know, it was.
Speaker 8: It was just crazy, man. It was just a crazy time.
Speaker 8: And then about two days after all that stuff happened,
Speaker 8: that's when the smoke cleared and we kind of figured like, oh,
Speaker 8: they didn't like that.
Speaker 5: Actually, there was still a slight delay before Bosh could
Speaker 5: watch his dreams come true the way a rock star
Speaker 5: would in his first headlining tour for one. Basketball normally
Speaker 5: needs five guys on the court at any given time,
Speaker 5: and these three needed some teammates.
Speaker 6: They all wanted to.
Speaker 5: Play with heat fixture and champion you Donnis Haslm as well.
Speaker 5: HASLM was a coveted free agent at the time, and
Speaker 5: it received a healthy offer from the Denver Nuggets, who
Speaker 5: featured another good friend of James and Wade's, Carmelo Anthony
Speaker 5: A Miami native and loyal to his corps.
Speaker 6: Haslam was actually.
Speaker 5: Heading to Miami's arena to eventually tell the Heats front
Speaker 5: office personnel that he'd be taking the deal from Denver
Speaker 5: and moving on for Miami because the organization didn't have
Speaker 5: enough money left under the salary cap structure to resign him.
Speaker 5: Then he got a call from his agent, the late
Speaker 5: Henry Thomas, who was also Bosh and Wade's agent. Thomas
Speaker 5: told him when he arrived at the arena to sit
Speaker 5: in his car for about thirty minutes while he sorted
Speaker 5: some things out. As it turned out, Wade had reached
Speaker 5: out and tried to figure out how much money the
Speaker 5: three main players would have to give up in order
Speaker 5: for the team to resign. HASLM team owner Mickey Harrison,
Speaker 5: general manager Andy Ellisburg, and team president pat Riley were
Speaker 5: all in the building trying to hash out the numbers
Speaker 5: on the day of the celebration.
Speaker 6: Here's Tim Reynolds again.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons why the party started so late.
Speaker 2: They're upstairs and either Mickey or Andy's office and they're
Speaker 2: all hashing out the money. Because you donnas had the
Speaker 2: Denver offer on the table. They were figuring out how
Speaker 2: much UD would leave on the table, and he left
Speaker 2: fourteen million. I think Denver offered him thirty four and
Speaker 2: Miami Miami could only come up with twenty. So they're
Speaker 2: all giving money back to do this, do this, do this.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get this. We're gonna get this, We're gonna
Speaker 2: do this. Dwayne gave back a little bit more than
Speaker 2: Lebron and Chris. They all work it out. They put
Speaker 2: on their their white Heat uniforms. They're going down to
Speaker 2: arena level to start this party. Finally, and somebody, I
Speaker 2: assume it was Andy, realized that Chris had not signed
Speaker 2: everything that he needed to sign. This starts mass chaos
Speaker 2: and the party is now delayed again, so they can
Speaker 2: run the paper down to Chris so he can initial
Speaker 2: whatever form he didn't initial, because you know, the Heat
Speaker 2: do it all by the book. Andy is very particular
Speaker 2: about the order of which things are signed and all that,
Speaker 2: and for good reason. That's why he's the best at
Speaker 2: what he does. And then and only then after they
Speaker 2: got Chrystal, like you know, put the paper up on
Speaker 2: a wall and scribble whatever you have to scribble on it.
Speaker 2: Then it was official. And then and only then put
Speaker 2: the party stuff.
Speaker 5: Haslam giving up millions to stay with his hometown was
Speaker 5: just the added fervor this gathering needed, he said. He
Speaker 5: immediately knew it was the right choice. Here's Eudonis.
Speaker 8: Everybody got their own things that they searching for. But
Speaker 8: if your why doesn't align with my why, I can't
Speaker 8: be in the locker room with you.
Speaker 16: You know, so I understood that.
Speaker 5: Okay, now it's party times for everyone outside of Miami.
Speaker 5: Those sounds were indicative of an overly brash, unnecessarily talented
Speaker 5: trio saying way too much, far too soon.
Speaker 9: The way, we're gonna challenge each other to get better
Speaker 9: on practice once the game start.
Speaker 16: I mean it's gonna be easy.
Speaker 11: I mean, but we also know youth pre Kings came
Speaker 11: down here to win championships, not one championships. Lebron tell
Speaker 11: us about that, not two, not three.
Speaker 5: Not four, Lebron counting his rings before they hatched. Were
Speaker 5: words that would be repeated so often they'd become the
Speaker 5: rallying cry for those looking to taunt heat players, particularly
Speaker 5: James himself.
Speaker 13: Not five, not six, not seven.
Speaker 5: The celebration was not just universally considered over the top,
Speaker 5: obnoxious but entirely premature, and it set up even more
Speaker 5: of a disconnect between Lebron and his fans. In that moment,
Speaker 5: inside that Miami bubble, the joy coming from those three
Speaker 5: players and the fans celebrating with them appeared as genuine
Speaker 5: as it.
Speaker 6: Gets in its own way.
Speaker 5: It was actually perfect, at least according to someone like
Speaker 5: Levittard who truly knows Miami.
Speaker 7: It seemed to me that it would be a whole
Speaker 7: lot more fun to win with your friends than with
Speaker 7: people who weren't your friends, So why wouldn't they get together?
Speaker 7: But every time I raised it as a question in
Speaker 7: the months preceding the free agency, everyone laughed. That may
Speaker 7: laughed at the idea of it because it hadn't been
Speaker 7: done and people couldn't consider or fathom the notion of
Speaker 7: what ended up happening, which it wasn't merely Lebron James
Speaker 7: coming here, but it was Lebron James coming here and
Speaker 7: very much taking a little brother kind of place on
Speaker 7: the team, allowing Dwayne Wade to lead it, allowing Dwayne
Speaker 7: Wade to be the centerpiece of the whole thing. It
Speaker 7: was unusual to see even as it happened, and I'm
Speaker 7: not sure I could believe that it was happening even
Speaker 7: as it happened, because I just remember some of the
Speaker 7: specifics up Dwayne was introduced last Dwayne's team, Dwayne City,
Speaker 7: Dwayne's Team, Dwayne City, and I'm like, this other guy's
Speaker 7: better than Dwayne. Like this other guy is coming in
Speaker 7: and he's more famous than Dwayne, and he's coming in here,
Speaker 7: not necessarily for a subservient role, but something a lot
Speaker 7: different than the one that he was used to. All
Speaker 7: of a sudden, you had the most interesting sports team
Speaker 7: of our lifetimes, of my career working in this market, You,
Speaker 7: all of a sudden had a team that was disliked
Speaker 7: by the country and turned us against the world into
Speaker 7: something that made an appearance very early on with that
Speaker 7: cartoonish stage entrance where they were celebrating the championship before
Speaker 7: they had dribbled a basketball.
Speaker 11: Lebron On behalf.
Speaker 19: Of all of Josh Florida, thank you him, welcome. How's
Speaker 19: us feel where he's uniform?
Speaker 9: It feels right, it feels right. And to be in
Speaker 9: this position to where does he uniform?
Speaker 15: Every single night, We're gonna make the world. No, not
Speaker 15: just this lead, We're gonna work.
Speaker 9: We're gonna make the world know that the heat is back.
Speaker 16: Let's get it done, man, Let's get this thing done.
Speaker 7: I just thought it was uniquely cartoonishly comically Miami. Just loud, colorful, fun, funny, ridiculous.
Speaker 6: Just absurd.
Speaker 7: The whole thing was absurd. You had the celebration of
Speaker 7: a lifetime and all it was was three guys backstage,
Speaker 7: right before the crane lifted them up there signing the
Speaker 7: paperwork to finalize that they were actually going to get
Speaker 7: together and change what would be the next ten years
Speaker 7: of that sport.
Speaker 5: Maybe not ten years, as you might have guessed from
Speaker 5: the title of the pod. Four years is what Lebron
Speaker 5: lasted Miami, But what happened in those four years became
Speaker 5: one of the most intriguing eras in NBA history, with
Speaker 5: so many historic moments and unforgettable details that you're bound
Speaker 5: to learn something new revisiting them. The bump was absolutely
Speaker 5: a message.
Speaker 17: I was their courtside and I saw a battery land
Speaker 17: in front of me.
Speaker 2: Oh, they have made it mad.
Speaker 17: It was an incredible pressure cooker for those guys.
Speaker 4: There was no camaraderie, there was no cohesion, there was
Speaker 4: no raw Ross beat.
Speaker 2: It was like when the Americans beat the Soviets at
Speaker 2: Lake Plaster.
Speaker 18: As that ball left my fingers, it just felt like
Speaker 18: it floated.
Speaker 10: This is surreal, Like we're about to win the NBA Championship.
Speaker 7: One title would not have been enough, not.
Speaker 8: Comparison to the Beatles, but it was like a hysteria
Speaker 8: that I had never been a part of in my
Speaker 8: ten years in the league.
Speaker 3: When I found out that, you know, we got him
Speaker 3: in Miami, he I was super excited, but also I
Speaker 3: was like, he's a genius.
Speaker 16: Where else would you go?
Speaker 3: It's Miami.
Speaker 6: Four Years of Heat is a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 6: the NBA