Speaker 1: I mean when he made that announcement, first of all,
Speaker 1: I was excited, you know, buten Lebron James.
Speaker 2: I got loved Lebron James.
Speaker 1: And obviously he's one of the greats, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And when I found out that, you know,
Speaker 1: we got him at Miami Heat, I was super excited,
Speaker 1: but also I was like, he's a genius. Where else
Speaker 1: would you go? This is Miami. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: This is the Heat.
Speaker 1: We already won a championship.
Speaker 4: You know what it is is.
Speaker 1: The greats connect with the greats. Winners work with winners,
Speaker 1: and Lebron is a great and he's a winner. Miami
Speaker 1: Heat were winners were great. Our ac in the arena
Speaker 1: comes down the air. It's a blessing of greatness.
Speaker 3: Okay, called pretty sure.
Speaker 5: The air conditioning is just special in any NBA arena
Speaker 5: except for maybe one in Texas, but we'll get to
Speaker 5: that one a little later. Welcome back to four years
Speaker 5: of Heat. I'm your host, Israel Gutierrez and this is
Speaker 5: episode two, Not So.
Speaker 3: Fast, DJ khaled.
Speaker 5: The Heat super fan raving about his team's super fans was,
Speaker 5: as usual, right in line with other Heat supporters after
Speaker 5: that extravagant signing party that set.
Speaker 3: The expectation bar so high.
Speaker 5: When your team has accomplished the greatest free agent signing
Speaker 5: trifecta the league has ever seen in one off season, Yes,
Speaker 5: even the air conditioning starts to feel elite. The afterglow
Speaker 5: of simply putting the pieces together was still so strong,
Speaker 5: But the piercing ringing criticism it just kept getting louder.
Speaker 5: The critics of Lebron for leaving Cleveland the way he
Speaker 5: did and for needing teammates the caliber of Wade and
Speaker 5: Bosh were only beginning to dig in their heels. If
Speaker 5: you go back to the decision, to the question everybody
Speaker 5: wants to know Lebron, what's your decision.
Speaker 3: To that one moment where he said.
Speaker 6: And this fall, man, it's very tough, And this fall,
Speaker 6: I'm going to take my talents to South Beach and
Speaker 6: join the Miami Heat.
Speaker 5: That momentary pause in between the two this falls, that
Speaker 5: was the last moment he would have to consider all
Speaker 5: of these consequences. He clearly already done so and made
Speaker 5: his decision, But that final bit of hesitation, it was
Speaker 5: there for a reason. If he could have extrapolated and
Speaker 5: explained what exactly made this choice so challenging. Perhaps he
Speaker 5: could have avoided some of the arrows headed his way,
Speaker 5: but he powered right through with four words. This is
Speaker 5: very tough, carrying way more weight than anyone could have imagined.
Speaker 5: So much so even as soon to be teammates were
Speaker 5: hanging on every syllable, wondering if the chosen One, as
Speaker 5: Lebron has tattooed on his back, would actually choose them
Speaker 5: as planned, or if a stronger force had pulled them
Speaker 5: in another direction. Rachel Nichols has been a sports journalist
Speaker 5: since nineteen ninety five and has covered Lebron James in
Speaker 5: some capacity since his high school days. She started her
Speaker 5: career at the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, establishing an affinity
Speaker 5: for the South Florida sports scene, then went on to
Speaker 5: work for The Washington Post, ESPN, CNN, and Turner Sports,
Speaker 5: and currently hosts an interview series on.
Speaker 3: Showtime called Headliners.
Speaker 5: Nichols regularly interviewed Miami's three stars for national broadcasts throughout
Speaker 5: this era, with some particularly memorable talks with Lebron. Specifically,
Speaker 5: Rachel noted while watching the decision that Wade appeared to
Speaker 5: have a delayed response, almost as if he didn't know
Speaker 5: what Lebron would say, despite the fact that he was
Speaker 5: at a celebration watch party at Miami's famous Prime one
Speaker 5: twelve restaurant and everyone in the room was expecting him
Speaker 5: to say some version of Miami or Heat. No matter
Speaker 5: what had been decided when they talked amongst themselves, Wade
Speaker 5: still recognized the gravity of choice James was about to make,
Speaker 5: and given that they hadn't talked in a while, Wade
Speaker 5: was on pins and needles watching.
Speaker 2: The Thing I noticed the most from that broadcast and
Speaker 2: that moment was that Dwayne Wade, you could tell if
Speaker 2: you look back at that video, absolutely was not sure
Speaker 2: what was going to come out of Lebron's mouth. You
Speaker 2: can see it on his face. And there was a
Speaker 2: little bit of presumption on everyone's part, including obviously ESPN
Speaker 2: that had a camera there at Prime one twelve Ato's
Speaker 2: watched party of Yeah, yeah, it's a done deal. We're
Speaker 2: just going to get Dwayne's reaction, and you could tell
Speaker 2: on Dwayne's face that he was incredibly nervous about what
Speaker 2: Lebron was going to say, and that he was incredibly
Speaker 2: relieved after he said it, and I've spoken to Dwayne
Speaker 2: a couple times since then, and he said that not
Speaker 2: only did he not speak to Lebron for the three
Speaker 2: days before the decision came out, Dwayne was very open
Speaker 2: about the fact that he and Chris and Lebron had
Speaker 2: made this plan, but he just stopped hearing from Lebron
Speaker 2: about three days before the decision date, and that he
Speaker 2: was texting and getting no answer. And Dwayne has said
Speaker 2: to me, I kept thinking, Okay, me and Chris, that's good.
Speaker 2: That's a duo, Me and Chris. That's gonna be great.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be great being Chris. So he was trying
Speaker 2: to talk himself into the idea that Lebron had possibly
Speaker 2: changed his mind. And I said, so, you didn't know
Speaker 2: what was going to come out of Lebron's mouth, And
Speaker 2: he said, I'm not sure Lebron knew for sure what
Speaker 2: was going to come out of his mouth. That in
Speaker 2: that moment, he thinks Lebron not that I was having
Speaker 2: second thoughts, but just the enormity of the situation and
Speaker 2: what was he about to say was really weighing on him.
Speaker 2: But Lebron, of course, said South Beach. Dwayne also told
Speaker 2: me that When Lebron first said South Peach, it took
Speaker 2: him a second. It took him a beat because, as
Speaker 2: you know, they don't play in South Beach, so it
Speaker 2: was not the word he expected. The word he expected
Speaker 2: was Miami or they heat, and even those South Beach
Speaker 2: was obviously that Lebron was coming to join Dwayne. The
Speaker 2: fact that it wasn't any of those three words sort
Speaker 2: of through him for just another half second.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's be real for a second.
Speaker 5: Do we really think Lebron would have tossed out the
Speaker 5: ultimate plot twist and said something other than Miami at
Speaker 5: this point, Imagine the egg on the faces of everyone
Speaker 5: at that Miami watch party had Lebron announced he was
Speaker 5: staying home or that he was joining Derrick Rose and
Speaker 5: the Baby Bulls. There's just no way, right, this had
Speaker 5: been planned far in advance and nothing was going to
Speaker 5: change this trio's mind, right, right, Well, perhaps one day,
Speaker 5: when Lebron retires, he'll break out the rocking chair and
Speaker 5: tell us exactly what he was thinking leading up to
Speaker 5: that day and just how warranted Wade and Bosh's concerns were.
Speaker 5: In the meantime, Brian Windhorst is probably the best person
Speaker 5: to ask. Windhors has been covering Lebron since his high
Speaker 5: school days, working for the Akron Beacon Journal and Cleveland
Speaker 5: Plain Dealer before joining ESPN to cover the NBA and
Speaker 5: a lot more Lebron. Was this the smooth finish to
Speaker 5: years of planning or was the path more of a
Speaker 5: rickety bridge that could always collapse just before all parties
Speaker 5: reached the other side.
Speaker 7: So when it comes to stuff like this, I'm always
Speaker 7: going to judge actions over words, So let's focus on
Speaker 7: the actions. The actions were. In two thousand and six,
Speaker 7: Chris Bosh, Lebron, James, and Dwayne Wade all aligned their
Speaker 7: contracts with three year extensions. At the time, under the
Speaker 7: rules that existed, those guys doing that was unheard of,
Speaker 7: and Carmelo Anthony, who was obviously in their association group
Speaker 7: and had was drafted in the same draft class, had
Speaker 7: the same options. He elected not to do that. He
Speaker 7: didn't like the risk associated with it, and he took
Speaker 7: a five year extension. And it's interesting that him his
Speaker 7: decision doing that ended up causing an interesting development later
Speaker 7: on when Lebron, Bosh, and Wade all got together and
Speaker 7: Carmelo had to force a trade, which ended up harming him.
Speaker 7: That decision ended up in some ways coming back to
Speaker 7: backfire on Carmelo. But they obviously at that time wanted
Speaker 7: their contracts aligned to allow for options down the road.
Speaker 7: But the other thing I think it's important is the
Speaker 7: actions that took place the week of the twenty ten
Speaker 7: free agency decisions. They obviously had discussed with each other
Speaker 7: the idea of playing together, and obviously at some point
Speaker 7: there was an alignment on deciding to play together with
Speaker 7: the Heat. And I've listened to all three of their stories.
Speaker 7: There's certain details that don't line up, and so what
Speaker 7: the actual truth was, I don't know if we'll ever
Speaker 7: fully establish. There obviously was a time where they all
Speaker 7: got together and said, Okay, it's going to be Miami.
Speaker 7: And I do think for Lebron he always thought it
Speaker 7: was going to be Cleveland or Miami. And when Cleveland
Speaker 7: made the pitch, Lebron's discussions with them were about trying
Speaker 7: to add another piece, and all of those teams discussions
Speaker 7: were about trying to add Lebron and another piece. That
Speaker 7: was the what all those teams brought. It was only
Speaker 7: the Heat that was able to execute Lebron plus two,
Speaker 7: and it was just simple mathematics that they were able
Speaker 7: to do that. So in summation they always left the
Speaker 7: option of playing together open and took actions with their
Speaker 7: contracts to make that happen as soon as possible, But
Speaker 7: actually doing it, I do think, came right down to
Speaker 7: roughly decision day in twenty ten.
Speaker 5: By the actual decision day, Cleveland had been ruled out
Speaker 5: because of Bosh's lack of interest in playing there, and
Speaker 5: even though it felt like Miami was the only remaining option,
Speaker 5: there were still lingering doubts about what Lebron would actually say.
Speaker 5: It was the first and most obvious sign that even
Speaker 5: though this was a union of three stars trying to
Speaker 5: win championships for themselves and their organization, this was Lebron
Speaker 5: James taking control of his legacy, an extended business trip,
Speaker 5: if you will, a four year college stretch, as he
Speaker 5: would later call it.
Speaker 3: He had to win championships, not Bosh.
Speaker 5: He needed to start a collection of rings to chase Jordan,
Speaker 5: not Wade. The pressure Wade in Bosh felt was just
Speaker 5: as much to accomplish this for Lebron as it was
Speaker 5: for their own careers, and by the time they'd reached
Speaker 5: Herbert Field, a US Air Force base in the Panhandle
Speaker 5: of Florida, for their first training camp together. All the
Speaker 5: Heat players had started to feel the unprecedented level of
Speaker 5: scrutiny this team would face. Their ears were still ringing.
Speaker 5: Nichols could tell the tone of Miami's main three had
Speaker 5: changed from post signing party to pre training camp interview.
Speaker 2: I actually interviewed them at the PEP rally, so there
Speaker 2: was that joyous moment, and then the interview you're referring
Speaker 2: to was a lot more defensive. And just to see
Speaker 2: that change was super interesting because the PEP rally, as
Speaker 2: you remember, was all excitement, and they got a little
Speaker 2: carried away, as they admitted later with the not one,
Speaker 2: not two, not three, not seventeen, And you know, it
Speaker 2: was joy and it was happiness, and it was this
Speaker 2: excitement about being together and all the possibility. And by
Speaker 2: the time we got to right before the season, they
Speaker 2: had had all that time to hear about how terrible
Speaker 2: they were, how disloyal some of them were, how selfish
Speaker 2: some of them were. All the things that were hurled
Speaker 2: at them, and so much of it was about so
Speaker 2: much more than basketball or Lebron James. There were so
Speaker 2: many feelings about the state of the country. There were
Speaker 2: so many feelings about race, there were so many feelings
Speaker 2: about Middle America and people leaving their hometowns and their
Speaker 2: states in the middle of the country because industries had
Speaker 2: dried up, and that feeling of being abandoned. There's so
Speaker 2: many things that tied into why that backlash happened. But
Speaker 2: you could tell by the time we sat down for
Speaker 2: that interview right before the season, that backlash had hit
Speaker 2: them all pretty hard.
Speaker 8: You know. It's that's alid part of the game.
Speaker 6: And at the end of the day that we all
Speaker 6: know if they booing you because they don't like you,
Speaker 6: or because they fear you, what do you think.
Speaker 9: I think because they fear you can't boo Jordan. How
Speaker 9: can you boo George because you don't like him.
Speaker 6: You don't like George's game, You're gonna boom Maddie's games,
Speaker 6: Bird games doing that.
Speaker 2: And the posture that they took was to go on
Speaker 2: the offensive.
Speaker 10: We all know everything that someone has said about us
Speaker 10: individually as a team.
Speaker 8: The style of basketball that we want to play.
Speaker 10: We want to defensive, rebounding, those our main two things.
Speaker 8: You can't be nice and do that.
Speaker 10: You know, when you see Jordan take the ball from
Speaker 10: somebody and go down and dunk in somebody's face, He's
Speaker 10: not like, I guess I'll take it from I guess
Speaker 10: I don't have a nice day.
Speaker 3: And thanks to ESPN for that clip.
Speaker 2: They definitely grabbed that idea of you want us to
Speaker 2: be the villains. Okay, we're going to be the villains.
Speaker 2: Lebron talked about the fact that he had made a
Speaker 2: list all summer of all the people who had said
Speaker 2: things to him, and I said, what are you going
Speaker 2: to do with that list? And he said, turn him
Speaker 2: into wins? You did right on your Twitter page.
Speaker 4: Don't think for a minute that I'm not taking mental
Speaker 4: notes at everyone who took shots at me this summer.
Speaker 9: Explain and none explain you read a sel of explantor what.
Speaker 4: Are those mental notes going to translate.
Speaker 9: Into to a lot of wins?
Speaker 3: Thanks again to ESPN for that sound.
Speaker 5: Training camp at an Air Force base was a less
Speaker 5: than subtle choice by team president Riley to address the
Speaker 5: level of dedication needed and the type of brotherhood that
Speaker 5: would have to be forged in order to complete the
Speaker 5: championship journey, but it also set the tone for the
Speaker 5: bunker mentality this group would have to employ to maintain insanity.
Speaker 5: Every single word was picked apart, and the coverage of
Speaker 5: the team itself was criticized.
Speaker 3: Remember the Heat Index.
Speaker 5: No, it was effectively a separate site from ESPN dot
Speaker 5: com that had multiple reporters covering only the Heat, not
Speaker 5: the rest of the association, just Miami. No matter how
Speaker 5: mine or the story, it got major coverage. Publicly, it
Speaker 5: was deemed overkill for a team that had won absolutely
Speaker 5: nothing at the time, despite the fact the site never
Speaker 5: lacked for traffic. I might have written a few words
Speaker 5: for the Heat Index, and I remember finding it strange
Speaker 5: that I went from a local newspaper in the Miami
Speaker 5: Herald to a national outlet like ESPN, only to cover
Speaker 5: the local team even closer. But that was the world
Speaker 5: Lebron and the Heat created for everyone, and the Miami
Speaker 5: Heat as a team, as Windhors discussed, were forced to
Speaker 5: wear a label they never wanted, the label of villain.
Speaker 7: He came off seeming like a mercenary there, and a
Speaker 7: mercenary isn't historically a desirable side to root for, you know,
Speaker 7: they were sort of the villains. Then the nature of
Speaker 7: them being put together was of of of a villainous act.
Speaker 7: A lot of people compared what Lebron, Wade and Bosh
Speaker 7: did to the wrestling move nWo. nWo was cast to
Speaker 7: be a villain. They were. Their script was to be
Speaker 7: a villain. The fact that the Heat wore black, and
Speaker 7: that you know, we're from a glamorous place and sort
Speaker 7: of represented a lifestyle and in a sort of a
Speaker 7: class that is not the every fan like. All of
Speaker 7: it fit into a narrative creating this team, but doing
Speaker 7: it in such a way that empowered them, and for
Speaker 7: it to be an absolute abject disaster in public relations,
Speaker 7: an area that they awe themselves as like thought leaders
Speaker 7: in that was a huge blow. Then, for him to
Speaker 7: get to this team and be generally disliked every time
Speaker 7: they stepped out of Miami was not something he was
Speaker 7: prepared for, and it was especially surprising because he thought
Speaker 7: he had prepared for everything. I don't think he could
Speaker 7: possibly think that there would be more scrutiny on him
Speaker 7: that was already on him, from being on Sports Illustrated
Speaker 7: when he was seventeen, to being on ESPN as a
Speaker 7: high school senior, which at the time was unheard of
Speaker 7: to signing this huge Nike contract. I mean, people forget
Speaker 7: Kobe signed. Kobe Bryant was a three time NBA champion
Speaker 7: and one of the faces of the league. He signed
Speaker 7: a Nike contract the gear Lebron came in the league
Speaker 7: for forty million. Lebron signed a Nike contract coming into
Speaker 7: the league for ninety million. Okay, he felt like that
Speaker 7: was a big pressures point. The drama in Cleveland of
Speaker 7: him not getting over the hump, you know, being with
Speaker 7: the number one seed his last two years there and
Speaker 7: not getting it done, you know, struggling in his last
Speaker 7: playoff series with the Calves. I think he thought he
Speaker 7: knew what adversity was, and he had seen a lot
Speaker 7: of it, and frankly, he had overcome a big portion
Speaker 7: of He hadn't become a champion yet, but I'm sure
Speaker 7: he felt he was going to get there, and so
Speaker 7: when he came to Miami and there was just the
Speaker 7: only the only thing I could describe was nightly venom.
Speaker 5: The regular season began in the most venomous possible setting,
Speaker 5: Boston's TD Garden. It was where Wade and the Heat
Speaker 5: were eliminated in their previous postseason and where Lebron had
Speaker 5: so many duels with Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.
Speaker 5: It was the Celtics, remember that also knocked out Lebron
Speaker 5: in his last game as a Cavalier. This crowd was
Speaker 5: ready to be the first to mock this Heat super team,
Speaker 5: and Miami's primary characters gave the crowd plenty of ammunition.
Speaker 11: Eighty three seventy two.
Speaker 7: Bush crowd started in with the overrated checks. We're in
Speaker 7: game one.
Speaker 5: If you recall, there weren't many returning players on this
Speaker 5: Heat team. It was Wade Eudonnis Haslam, Mario Chalmers, James Jones,
Speaker 5: and Joel Anthony. After that, it was a brand new
Speaker 5: group trying to create chemistry. Well, it was obvious in
Speaker 5: the opener that chemistry was still to be discovered. The
Speaker 5: team that was supposed to challenge the all time wins record,
Speaker 5: according to some, scored all of eighty points in a
Speaker 5: dud of a debut in Boston.
Speaker 3: This is a work in progress.
Speaker 6: We feel like we all know, Rome wasn't built in
Speaker 6: one day, you know, so it's going to take time,
Speaker 6: and we understand that we have to keep on making
Speaker 6: progress every day and she continued to get better.
Speaker 8: We just missed shots. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don't.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we miss some easy shots and never were able
Speaker 6: to get into a proper rhythm.
Speaker 3: But that's not a reason to panic. Right now. This
Speaker 3: is one of eighty two.
Speaker 12: You know, I'm sorry if I won't thought we's gonna
Speaker 12: go eighty two and zero.
Speaker 8: It just ain't happened.
Speaker 5: Players that were starting are getting heavy minutes at the
Speaker 5: beginning of the season. Players like starting point guard Carlos
Speaker 5: Arroyo and reserve Eddie House would barely be playing by
Speaker 5: season's end, or, in the case of Arroyo, not even
Speaker 5: on the team. Throw in the skilled duplication of Lebron
Speaker 5: and Wade, and the uncertainty and how to use Bosh effectively,
Speaker 5: and it meant the Heat started that season fairly uneven.
Speaker 5: They weren't lost, as you could easily get over either.
Speaker 5: They each seemed to come dressed with one enormous red flag,
Speaker 5: and said flag would be waived on every sports themed
Speaker 5: talk show in America until even Heat fans were in
Speaker 5: a panic. There was the opener in Boston where they
Speaker 5: all looked like strangers. There was the second loss to
Speaker 5: the New Orleans Hornets, led by a Mecca okafor the
Speaker 5: big man had a twenty six point seventeen rebound performance
Speaker 5: and it was a major concern for a Heat team
Speaker 5: with questions at center. There was a loss to Utah
Speaker 5: where Paul Millsap went nuts with forty six points, unearthing
Speaker 5: more holes in the Heat defense.
Speaker 11: He gives it off the pall.
Speaker 13: Can you believe that?
Speaker 3: One point?
Speaker 11: Gay at the buzzer? Millsap the follow up and all yeah,
Speaker 11: is that he knows it.
Speaker 5: There was another loss to Boston, this time in Miami,
Speaker 5: where Ray Allen hit his first seven three pointers and
Speaker 5: Wade was two for twelve from the field for a
Speaker 5: lousy eight points. Then there was a loss to Memphis
Speaker 5: without Wade, where Rudy Gay hit a game winner over
Speaker 5: Lebron Rudy for the win.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, yes, the night.
Speaker 14: Was on when the ball left his hand and he
Speaker 14: is the hero knock him down a big shot over
Speaker 14: Lebron James out stressed armed.
Speaker 5: There was a loss to Indiana where the Heat scored
Speaker 5: just seventy seven points at home and Wade had the
Speaker 5: worst shooting game of his career, one of thirteen from
Speaker 5: the field. There was the game, the Heat got dominated
Speaker 5: by Dwight Howard and JJ Reddick to fall to eight
Speaker 5: and seven. On the same day, President Barack Obama told
Speaker 5: Barbara Walters the Heat needed time to gel. It had
Speaker 5: reached a presidential level of concern. Then there was game
Speaker 5: number seventeen in Dallas. The Heat would fall to nine
Speaker 5: and eight and have a player's only meeting afterward. It's
Speaker 5: pretty obvious because it's in the title, but a player's
Speaker 5: only meeting does not include coaches. That was particularly notable
Speaker 5: after this contest, however, because during the game there was
Speaker 5: an incident that had some questioning the head coach, Eric
Speaker 5: Spolstra and his relationship with this super team. As the
Speaker 5: team was headed to the huddle a timeout, Spolster was
Speaker 5: walking onto the floor as Lebron was walking toward the bench.
Speaker 5: The two collided, Lebron's right arm bumping into Spolster's right shoulder,
Speaker 5: despite the fact James was looking in Spolster's direction the
Speaker 5: entire time.
Speaker 7: Under the time out there Spolster.
Speaker 14: Miami still has not scored in the third quarter, but
Speaker 14: Dallas has scored thirteen unanswered points.
Speaker 5: Here's Brian Winhorst on the first in season controversy to
Speaker 5: hit this Heat team bump gate.
Speaker 7: The bump was absolutely a message. Lebron doesn't do that
Speaker 7: without sending a message just how far he was willing
Speaker 7: to go. I'm not sure what I remember is coming in,
Speaker 7: you know, I believe the game in Dallas is on
Speaker 7: a Saturday night, there was a day off and coming
Speaker 7: in on Monday or you know, whenever. The next availability
Speaker 7: was wondering how Eric Spolstra was going to react to
Speaker 7: a lot of speculation about his job status, and Eric
Speaker 7: being absolutely as confident as I'd ever seen him that
Speaker 7: entire season, and that was a huge moment because while
Speaker 7: he was certainly projecting it to the media and therefore
Speaker 7: the public, he was also projecting it to the players.
Speaker 7: And he was doing it because he knew, despite what
Speaker 7: Lebron's messages were, that he had the organizations backing. And
Speaker 7: in later years it kind of came out. And it's
Speaker 7: not surprising because this is kind of who Lebron is
Speaker 7: that Lebron may have passive aggressively made some references to
Speaker 7: Pat about trying to coach again. I'm not sure Lebron
Speaker 7: ever actually directly called for it. I think he just
Speaker 7: sort of influenced in his way, and you know, we
Speaker 7: saw the same things happen later in his career with
Speaker 7: other coaches, so it's not that surprising. But I actually
Speaker 7: think that that was a valuable moment because Spolstra, knowing
Speaker 7: that he had Riley's back, only emboldened him, and it
Speaker 7: was kind of like, you know, a teenager testing his limits.
Speaker 7: He tested his limits, he learned what they were, and
Speaker 7: they moved on from there.
Speaker 5: We've already established a level of pressure placed on Lebron
Speaker 5: after joining Miami. His vision of how this was going
Speaker 5: to go didn't start out nine to eight. The obvious
Speaker 5: place to set the blame was on the head of Spolstra,
Speaker 5: who happened to only be in his third year in
Speaker 5: the seat. Lebron's mission to come to Miami and be
Speaker 5: stamped a champion wasn't going to be ruined by some
Speaker 5: novice headman, especially when a legend was in the organization
Speaker 5: in pat Riley, and he'd already done one in season
Speaker 5: rescue routine for his five oh six championship team when
Speaker 5: stan Van Gundy stepped down after twenty one in games.
Speaker 5: As Windhorse explained, the heat would stand by Spolstra even
Speaker 5: after some let's call it nudging from Lebron, but as
Speaker 5: former Heat point guard Mario Chalmers tells it, Lebron almost
Speaker 5: had to kick the tires on a Riley return because
Speaker 5: Lebron didn't come to Miami to fail. He was in
Speaker 5: the process, in his mind of chasing and eventually surpassing
Speaker 5: the careers of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, the players
Speaker 5: he watched and idolized. Brian and Jordan had a head
Speaker 5: coach in common while earning their rings, and for Lebron,
Speaker 5: a basketball historian, he figured he'd need a similarly experienced
Speaker 5: leader with which to pair, and he'd say as much.
Speaker 3: Here's Chalmers.
Speaker 13: I would hear business pieces of it, But I know
Speaker 13: bron biggest state was he's never had let me not
Speaker 13: say the wrong thing, A highly successful culture, a highly
Speaker 13: started out at the coach. You know, Mike Brown was
Speaker 13: a good coach, was a good coach.
Speaker 3: He never had his Phil Jackson.
Speaker 13: Right there, you go, that's perfect way to say. He
Speaker 13: says that he said that multiple times on the team
Speaker 13: in the locker room. So I don't think it was
Speaker 13: more of anything against Spoe. I just think I mean,
Speaker 13: I think Bron just wanted that person that had the
Speaker 13: accolades and that he knows what really pushed him to
Speaker 13: be what he came to Miami to beat, and that's
Speaker 13: one of the greats. And I don't think he's seen
Speaker 13: that from Spoe at first. But once they got it
Speaker 13: together and you could see them form a different type
Speaker 13: of bond, a different type of relationship.
Speaker 5: What the heat we're searching for was that binding agent,
Speaker 5: the unifying experience that clarifies the mission and brings the
Speaker 5: team even closer. At the moment, this was a team
Speaker 5: barely over the five hundred mark, with a superstar wondering
Speaker 5: if he'd made the right choice, and almost an entire
Speaker 5: country reveling in its failures. This wasn't what you Donnis
Speaker 5: Haslam gave up millions to be a part of.
Speaker 8: It was a struggle.
Speaker 12: I mean, we had a great, great training camp, you know,
Speaker 12: competition wise, I think we were where we needed to be.
Speaker 12: I think mentally, you know, it took some It took
Speaker 12: a while to get comfortable. You know, nobody wants to
Speaker 12: step on anybody told you know, we want to allow
Speaker 12: le Bron to be Lebron. We want to allow Chris
Speaker 12: to be Chris, I think Dwayne and I kind of
Speaker 12: just took a back seat just to kind of let
Speaker 12: those guys get comfortable, and I think that ended up hurting,
Speaker 12: you know, all of us early on in the season.
Speaker 12: But I think it's something that needed to happen. You know,
Speaker 12: you can't just go from A to D. You got
Speaker 12: to go through B and C. You can't skip steps,
Speaker 12: and I think those growing pains with things we just
Speaker 12: had to go through.
Speaker 5: Did the B and C Haslam reference there also mean
Speaker 5: the Boston Celtics. No, but it would have been really
Speaker 5: cool if it did. That's a confrontation still to come.
Speaker 5: For now, it was just one C, the city of
Speaker 5: Cleveland that would provide just the building block this group needed.
Speaker 5: To this point, there was an awkwardness hovering over this group.
Speaker 5: Their joy for the game, their thrill of being brought together.
Speaker 5: It had been met with a national grown and dulled severely.
Speaker 5: The resolve they built up during that stay in the
Speaker 5: Air Force base was being threatened. Lebron was mystified that
Speaker 5: he was booed, and that loss in Memphis, a city
Speaker 5: that Lebron never scorned. He never even teased the possibility
Speaker 5: of signing there. After a couple of steadying winds against
Speaker 5: the Wizards and Pistons, the Heat were set for Cleveland,
Speaker 5: Lebron's former home, a place he knew he wouldn't be
Speaker 5: greeted warmly anymore.
Speaker 4: And then, of course, you guys play in Cleveland. Dwayne
Speaker 4: you recently said you think you're going to need a
Speaker 4: police escort just to get out of that city. What
Speaker 4: is that going to be? Like him?
Speaker 9: That's gonna bring my camera.
Speaker 8: I just want to get the footage.
Speaker 9: I think it's get a lot of booze that night too.
Speaker 6: You know, it definitely won't be a warm reception, but
Speaker 6: it's another game, another challenge for us to deal with
Speaker 6: adversity throughout the course of the season, and.
Speaker 9: I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 6: I've got a lot of memories with those fans, and
Speaker 6: you know, I'm gonna see a lot of fans seen
Speaker 6: every single night for those forty one home games every season,
Speaker 6: plus playoffs.
Speaker 8: But I'll be on the other side of sound.
Speaker 5: Thank you to ESPN for that bite. It's one of
Speaker 5: the developing themes of this Heat experience. It was even
Speaker 5: more of a harrowing homecoming than anyone could have predicted.
Speaker 14: For seven seasons, Lebron James Moore, the colors of the
Speaker 14: Cleveland Cavaliers. Then came the decision, and tonight comes the return,
Speaker 14: and moments ago he took to the court in.
Speaker 5: Cleveland, just off Lake Erie Is, the building once called
Speaker 5: Quicken Loans Arena. On December two, twenty ten, Rachel Nichols
Speaker 5: was one of many journalists who parachuted in to witness
Speaker 5: the Return of the King.
Speaker 2: Do you sort of think, Okay, we know what sand
Speaker 2: behavior is like, and what a difficult or tense situation
Speaker 2: is like, and absolutely none of that prepared any single
Speaker 2: one of us for what it was going to be like.
Speaker 2: I have never before or since been in an environment
Speaker 2: like that. I have been to thousands of games in
Speaker 2: half a dozen sports. I have been covered Super Bowls,
Speaker 2: I have covered World Series. I have covered other players
Speaker 2: returns to cities they used to play in. I have
Speaker 2: never ever seen or felt anything like that. And when
Speaker 2: I say felt, the feeling is is that the building
Speaker 2: was vibrating. And I don't mean that is a euphemism.
Speaker 2: I mean that there was so much noise and so
Speaker 2: much sound that you could put your hand down on
Speaker 2: the table in front of you and it was vibrating
Speaker 2: a little bit. The players would say later as they
Speaker 2: were gathering in the pregame locker room that it felt
Speaker 2: like the fans were in there with them, that's how
Speaker 2: loud it was. And they actually had to cover They
Speaker 2: call it the vomitatorium, which is a ridiculous name, but
Speaker 2: it's the tunnel where players walk out from the locker
Speaker 2: room onto the court. That area had not been previously
Speaker 2: covered in Cleveland, and they actually covered it for that
Speaker 2: game because they were so worried about what fans were
Speaker 2: going to throw at the players. And I was their
Speaker 2: court side and I saw a battery land in front
Speaker 2: of me, so I know those were being thrown, and
Speaker 2: who knows what else from other parts of the building,
Speaker 2: to say the least, at the names being called of
Speaker 2: these players, and went way outside the bounds of what
Speaker 2: is appropriate on a basketball court. And I want to
Speaker 2: be careful because you know, there's give or take, twenty
Speaker 2: thousand people in that building, and I am sure that
Speaker 2: nineteen thousand, five hundred of them behaved completely appropriately, But
Speaker 2: the fact that you did have a vocal and physical
Speaker 2: minority of fans that didn't really change the experience. And
Speaker 2: one of the things I noticed as all of this
Speaker 2: chaos was going on is that Lebron James, with his
Speaker 2: headphones on as he was getting ready for the game,
Speaker 2: looked like he had no idea that all of this
Speaker 2: was happening outside those headphones around him. And of course
Speaker 2: he did, We all know that he did. But the
Speaker 2: fact that he was able to maintain that barrier and
Speaker 2: that mental piece in that environment is one of the
Speaker 2: more impressive things, frankly, that I have seen. And we
Speaker 2: saw how he played during that game. He played like
Speaker 2: he felt and you could see it.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 15: It's me I stuttered for the visiting why every heat
Speaker 15: at four six from Saint Visit Saint Very High School
Speaker 15: Lubber six labroad day.
Speaker 5: Windhorse, like myself was in the building as well. I'd
Speaker 5: been there probably a dozen times in my career to
Speaker 5: that point. And when I say the air felt thick,
Speaker 5: it's the only way I could explain it. Everywhere you
Speaker 5: looked there was a sign of tension. The oxygen literally
Speaker 5: felt different than it did outside. Windhorse had spent countless
Speaker 5: nights in that fiding, none were like this night.
Speaker 7: Yeah. So I remember walking into the bowl and I
Speaker 7: don't know, maybe it was just a perception, but everything
Speaker 7: felt different. The light felt different, the air felt heavy.
Speaker 7: You could just feel it. I mean, you know, typically,
Speaker 7: you know before games, you know, there's just sort of
Speaker 7: just one hundred different things happening, you know, and you
Speaker 7: know it's all sort of unfocused. It's just sort of relaxed.
Speaker 7: Everybody's eyes in that room were on one person, and
Speaker 7: you know, the Calves were not calming it down. They
Speaker 7: were putting him on the scoreboard. You know, when Calves
Speaker 7: owner Dan Gilbert came in, they put him on the
Speaker 7: scoreboard as he walked in, almost like it was a
Speaker 7: some sort of fake boxing match to sort of, you know,
Speaker 7: pit him as the opponent, even though they're laughably not
Speaker 7: combatants on that court. It was very uncomfortable. It was
Speaker 7: uncomfortable for me. I can't imagine what it felt like
Speaker 7: for Lebron and the absolutely brilliant, just soul sucking, emboldening
Speaker 7: at the same time performance in the second half that
Speaker 7: Lebron had rena row.
Speaker 3: That's when teams get better of Lebron. James is just
Speaker 3: Lebron fire here in this third period.
Speaker 7: Just killing that crowd with spectacular execution.
Speaker 9: This is not there now.
Speaker 6: He did say coming in this game, he knows all
Speaker 6: the spots on this floor and he's going to every single.
Speaker 15: One of them.
Speaker 11: So Lebron is taking us tollicks pat to Cleveland. Lebron
Speaker 11: James of a heap, facing this hostile crowd all night long.
Speaker 11: It's an easy win, and you know that they are
Speaker 11: happy to get out of towns the back hallover for
Speaker 11: Saturday night's meeting with Atlanta. The Heat with a third
Speaker 11: straight win. They go to twelve at eight.
Speaker 7: And it broke the Cavaliers because they were a bad
Speaker 7: team that was doing okay, and they ended up losing
Speaker 7: more than twenty in a row after that, and the
Speaker 7: Heat basically had one loss for the next six weeks.
Speaker 7: That was as pivotal of a regular season game as
Speaker 7: you'll ever see it.
Speaker 5: Lebron finished that game with thirty eight points, twenty four
Speaker 5: of them coming in the third quarter.
Speaker 3: He added eight assists and didn't even need to play
Speaker 3: in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 5: He was talking to players on the Caps bench after
Speaker 5: a couple of impressive buckets. It looked like the joyous
Speaker 5: version of Lebron, at least for one game, was back,
Speaker 5: and as a result, it appeared the Heat turned the
Speaker 5: corner with such vigor they couldn't even see it behind
Speaker 5: them anymore. The one eighteen to ninety dismantling of his
Speaker 5: former franchise would be the third of eleven straight wins
Speaker 5: for Lebron in the Heat, and it would be part
Speaker 5: of a stretch where Miami won twenty one of twenty
Speaker 5: two games. What team did Miami lose to in that span?
Speaker 5: That would be the Dallas Mavericks, the team Miami lost
Speaker 5: to during Bumpgate that got this whole role started. It
Speaker 5: would provide a bit of foreshadowing, helping establish the Mavericks
Speaker 5: as one of the Heat's primary rivals in this era.
Speaker 5: But another rival would also emerge in year one, the
Speaker 5: Chicago Bulls, and they would soon bring this red hot
Speaker 5: Heat team to actual tears.
Speaker 7: When Dwayne Wade had two meetings with the Bulls, he
Speaker 7: didn't have that second meeting for fun.
Speaker 3: The questions got louder. The joy for a lot of
Speaker 3: people got heightened by They're not good enough.
Speaker 4: They're not good enough.
Speaker 13: They're not good enough, They're not good enough.
Speaker 9: That's the game.
Speaker 3: Within the game.
Speaker 12: You know that people you forget, but it's a real
Speaker 12: war out there.
Speaker 3: It's not check as it's.
Speaker 12: Chest, just gonna beat him up. I'm making physical and
Speaker 12: once again that's right up my alley. I told you
Speaker 12: they wanted me to be here for a reason. You know,
Speaker 12: they sacrificed for me for a reason. So once again
Speaker 12: I'm gonna give them their money's work.
Speaker 7: I believe that the pressure got to him, and I
Speaker 7: think the pressure got to him in Dallas, and so
Speaker 7: what made me wonder if something within him had been broken.
Speaker 12: Lebron James comes in front of him, they do the
Speaker 12: little rap video punch thing and all that.
Speaker 8: I remember it like it was yesterday.
Speaker 12: And then it was like from that point on Dirt
Speaker 12: and Jason Terry went on Demon time.
Speaker 3: Four years. If he does a production off iHeartRadio and
Speaker 3: the NBA