Speaker 1: Who could I call to put up a billboard in
Speaker 1: somebody else? CYD talk my shit?
Speaker 2: Able to do that? That isn't that's legendary. That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: I'm proud of that one. I need that one. That
Speaker 2: one was good. The backstory on that one is funny
Speaker 2: because originally I'm trying to buy a newspaper ad. They
Speaker 2: say it's one hundred thousand dollars just to put a
Speaker 2: newspaper a Yeah, well back then. Yeah, it's a little
Speaker 2: longer ago, but you're right, it shouldn't have been that much.
Speaker 2: But we were looking for estimates and uh, the Cleveland
Speaker 2: plane dealer, because Lebron was coming back home, refused to
Speaker 2: sell it to us. They said, no, we're not doing that.
Speaker 2: They refused our business. Uh, and so we needed an alternative.
Speaker 2: And it turns out that Akron billboards are like much
Speaker 2: less than that, and so so they saved me a
Speaker 2: lot of money. And it was like eleven or six
Speaker 2: Acron I don't remember how many Acron billboards and they
Speaker 2: all said, yes, Uh, you're welcome, Lebron love Miami is
Speaker 2: what they said. And I was going to fly a
Speaker 2: plane over as homecoming that said the same thing. It
Speaker 2: was set up. I had the banner and everything. It
Speaker 2: was set up. I will tell you a secret. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you a secret I've never I've never told before that.
Speaker 2: ESPN made me immediately take down the billboards and they
Speaker 2: immediately told me you can't fly that plane. And so
Speaker 2: I got a I got a call from a high
Speaker 2: ranking member of the Miami Heat Organization, UH saying I'm
Speaker 2: going to fly the plane. I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, you can't do that, you can't, you
Speaker 2: can't do that. I'm gone fire. You're gonna get me fired.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna have plause deniabilities that somebody else fly
Speaker 2: the plane. It's gonna look like an action.
Speaker 1: Whoever was talking about flying that plane was probably willing
Speaker 1: to go down with the motherucker.
Speaker 2: It was a dark cloud. It was for a while.
Speaker 1: We went in a funk for a while when we
Speaker 1: lost the king around here. I mean that, I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's just natural. It was a little dark cloud. It
Speaker 1: was for a minute when he left.
Speaker 3: Talk about that though, So you're in the you're in
Speaker 3: obviously the media uproar when bron chose to come here,
Speaker 3: and then when bron chooses to leave here. So talk
Speaker 3: about Yeah, talk about the highs and lows of on
Speaker 3: your side, what you're hearing, what you're seeing, what's going
Speaker 3: on when he says he's coming and the Big Three comes,
Speaker 3: and then when he leaves. I'd like to hear the difference.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was just profoundly grateful for all of it.
Speaker 2: It was just a it's a content bonanza. You're coming
Speaker 2: down to our city and you're making us like this
Speaker 2: just electrical pulsating thing for Paul millsaps Game seventeen, and
Speaker 2: you're like watching this thing that matters so much to
Speaker 2: the city because it's very much Miami against the United States.
Speaker 2: The only other time it's been like that was University
Speaker 2: of Miami football teams that make him stop being a
Speaker 2: Gator for a second, you know, like those because what
Speaker 2: those those teams were hated and Miami forged around them,
Speaker 2: and it was like, yes, this is an ethnic fun
Speaker 2: team that trample sportsmanship. You guys were that polarizing without
Speaker 2: any of the bat like, without any of the stuff
Speaker 2: that was going to horrify the white customer that you
Speaker 2: knew about that you knew about it, that you knew
Speaker 2: about it, right, but you guys. So you're the polarizing
Speaker 2: theme thing coast to coast, and only polarizing because you
Speaker 2: celebrated the championship before we dribbled the basketball.
Speaker 1: It would have hear something crazy because you touched on
Speaker 1: it earlier about how hard it is and it's not fun.
Speaker 2: People don't understand that.
Speaker 1: People think like, once we got that team together that
Speaker 1: it was fun and and they just messed and it
Speaker 1: just jailed and we just had to we had to parade.
Speaker 1: I tell people all the time, nothing about that shit
Speaker 1: was fun until you were riding down the street in
Speaker 1: that parade. That's the only part about that shit that
Speaker 1: was fun. None of that shit was fun because there
Speaker 1: was expectations, and we understood those expectations. If we don't win,
Speaker 1: they gonna blow this shit up. And now we sacrifice money.
Speaker 1: We sacrificed time. Mike talked about this before we sacrificed money.
Speaker 1: We sacrificed time, and we're getting traded some.
Speaker 2: Fun and and we're game away, game away, game in Boston.
Speaker 2: Away from your sacrificees meant nothing. That gooing laughter about
Speaker 2: the sacrifices that you made, laughing stocks because you guys
Speaker 2: took all the discounts and look at that. It was
Speaker 2: supposed to be easy. One of the weird things that
Speaker 2: I'll never get though, because God, you guys change the
Speaker 2: sports so much over the last fifteen years, so I
Speaker 2: figure that it's going to be easy that those years,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't easy. And I think you guys get
Speaker 2: the reputation that you have as hard earned champions because
Speaker 2: it was hard. If it had been easy, it would
Speaker 2: have liked Lebron would have been looked at less than
Speaker 2: and Dwayne too if it had been easy. But the
Speaker 2: part that was confusing to me. So Durant sees him
Speaker 2: do that, and Lebron did that because Pearce and Garnett
Speaker 2: and Allen were together, and Durant does it and they
Speaker 2: win easily, and I'm like, well, that must be fun, right,
Speaker 2: Like they win easily, Like it must be fun to
Speaker 2: play basketball like that. That's the greatest thing I ever seen.
Speaker 2: You can pass the Durant, you can or you can
Speaker 2: pass the step and Draymonald do all the shit.
Speaker 1: Only he wants to let me ask you this because
Speaker 1: how was that not fun for him?
Speaker 2: But why?
Speaker 1: And because I want to talk about this, But this
Speaker 1: is what I noticed Why was the Miami Heats team
Speaker 1: hated for the decision we made? But I think Golden
Speaker 1: State team was loved. We were more first go to take.
Speaker 1: They love Clay, they love stuff. That that team were
Speaker 1: first was lifted and they were loved. But when Braun
Speaker 1: came to us, we were hated. Why was that a
Speaker 1: different reaction from the media and from the world.
Speaker 3: I can answer to I think honestly, and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: let you answer too, because you'll be You're way better
Speaker 3: at that than I am. But I think the reality
Speaker 3: is like they hated us so much for doing it
Speaker 3: that they had to love someone else to do it.
Speaker 3: But before again, right like they hated us for doing it,
Speaker 3: they hated us for doing it. I don't know how
Speaker 3: you guy saw it on the media side of things,
Speaker 3: but like we it was. It was a blessing to
Speaker 3: me because I'd never been in relevance in the NBA.
Speaker 3: Like I hadn't been in relevance. Is the reason I
Speaker 3: came here. I wanted to see what I do on
Speaker 3: the stage. I wanted to like either I was gonna
Speaker 3: ship myself, I'm gonna actually perform. But that to me
Speaker 3: is they hate us so much that now you need
Speaker 3: someone to like. And when they did it, I think
Speaker 3: it was more of the like.
Speaker 2: On that side.
Speaker 1: I thought it was because step and play with light
Speaker 1: skin That's what I'm just being honest.
Speaker 2: See, see you know it was going around. I had
Speaker 2: the undercurrent of it, and I'm like, I can't say
Speaker 2: that I'm not. I felt it off him, and I'm
Speaker 2: like thinking to myself twenty words, he says light skinning.
Speaker 2: But also am I wrong? Am I wrong? Well? I
Speaker 2: look not how the two teams were perceived. I don't
Speaker 2: think you're wrong. And I think there are a lot
Speaker 2: of variables. And I think you were first and and
Speaker 2: and look that doing the thing on the stage. Yes,
Speaker 2: I don't need to tell you that arrogant black athlete. However,
Speaker 2: it is that you arrive at arrogant black athletes celebrating
Speaker 2: something before it has been earned is going to be
Speaker 2: seen a certain way. So there's that, but i'd put
Speaker 2: that off to the side. I'd also put in there
Speaker 2: that Dwayne and Lebron throughout all of that, became adult
Speaker 2: spokesman for things ranging from UH Trayvon Martin to UH
Speaker 2: to we need to improve our schools, and became adults
Speaker 2: in a way that Steph and Clay have not had
Speaker 2: to because Dwayne and Lebron were already doing that and
Speaker 2: we're sort of leaders there and and like I I
Speaker 2: found that entire time fascinating, captivating for a lot of
Speaker 2: different reasons. Uh, the brotherhood of Dwayne and Lebron was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Lebron coming here and taking a little brother role and
Speaker 2: doing two media sessions a day, and and and wanting
Speaker 2: to learn from Dwayne. It's a it's a beautiful story.
Speaker 2: If I wrapped that story in the Olympic flag and
Speaker 2: made it about like Olympic patriotism, we would love that team, right,
Speaker 2: Steve Currac Actually Steve I wrote that one time, and
Speaker 2: Steve Kerr wrote me a note saying before he coached
Speaker 2: the Warriors, what a beautiful thing to write in the
Speaker 2: middle of what that was going on, where I'm like,
Speaker 2: do you know how much America would love this particular
Speaker 2: team and this story? It's pieces right when I'm saying
Speaker 2: when I'm saying, Mike going to his mother's deathbed with
Speaker 2: a team who drives a convoy to the funeral home
Speaker 2: to be at his side.
Speaker 1: In Liberty City, nine o'clock I'm like Pat by nine third,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to get up out of here, real talk. Pat,
Speaker 1: you got about thirty four minutes. I'm gonna walk you
Speaker 1: to Yoka. But Pat was, yeah, they.
Speaker 2: Came that he would love Dwayne the way that he does,
Speaker 2: the game balls that I'm going after Tyler Hansbro like
Speaker 2: all the stuff you guys had. I was so proud
Speaker 2: to write about it, to see it, to feel it,
Speaker 2: to be next to it, to profit off of it,
Speaker 2: because you guys brought a whole economy of attention down
Speaker 2: here to sports. You guys, I moved to the Cleveland Er.
Speaker 2: We got a studio. I'm doing a speedo back with
Speaker 2: Charles Barkley. We're at the center of the universe in
Speaker 2: sports because you guys brought all of that here. Him
Speaker 2: with his bad.
Speaker 1: Back, Motheruck's still bad still. But I don't what you
Speaker 1: don't know about that story. I'll tell you something that
Speaker 1: you don't know about that story. As me and Mike
Speaker 1: were talking about that story and we talked about what
Speaker 1: they offered him, and we talked about what we were
Speaker 1: going to do because of the brotherhood that we have,
Speaker 1: and Mike crazy as hell. He was like yeah, if
Speaker 1: you ain't going, I ain't going, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And that was that's that's what my brother was like,
Speaker 1: what we what we're gonna do here, because we always
Speaker 1: wanted to have the chance to play together and we
Speaker 1: talked about that since college. But that was around the
Speaker 1: time that the game was changing and the three point
Speaker 1: shot was what it was. It was either dunks in
Speaker 1: the paint or it was three point shots. So obviously
Speaker 1: Mike was the choice at that moment, but we we
Speaker 1: were having conversations behind the scenes because you talk about
Speaker 1: that brotherhood and those things and those conversations. And then
Speaker 1: another point that people don't know is Lebron didn't know me,
Speaker 1: never played with me. Chris Bosh didn't know you never played.
Speaker 2: You were on Dwayne Wade's word is what you were on? Dwayne?
Speaker 2: You that Dwayne Wade cash that check. And it's like
Speaker 2: and it's like, we're all going to share our money here,
Speaker 2: and this is gonna be fun, right the five of them.
Speaker 2: So this is gonna be fun. Well, we'll just we'll
Speaker 2: take the discounts. We'll sign you guys, weren't They weren't
Speaker 2: signing contracts until the stage was coming up right, and
Speaker 2: you guys are taking millions less and and it's crazy
Speaker 2: to think that sports would be such a cauldron that
Speaker 2: you guys couldn't enjoy any of that when it seemed
Speaker 2: like from where I was watching, it was the most
Speaker 2: magical thing that for me, it broke you did. But
Speaker 2: how but how great is that you wanted to test
Speaker 2: yourself against? How cool is that? Mike? This is what
Speaker 2: I'm saying about what the cool parts of this story were.
Speaker 2: How cool is it that he wants to test himself
Speaker 2: against the best? He could have scored twenty a night
Speaker 2: for Memphis for the rest of time. No, I want
Speaker 2: to play against I want to play against the best.
Speaker 2: They think he's taking a shortcut. No know, if you
Speaker 2: give me fifteen shots a game, I swear to you,
Speaker 2: I'll score thirty aday. Like he knows he can shoot.
Speaker 2: He's taking a lesser role in the name of the
Speaker 2: sacrifice of everybody wants to be about winning, right, brotherhood winning?
Speaker 2: These are cool things for him to physically test himself
Speaker 2: against the best. I don't know what it's like to
Speaker 2: get up in the morning. Is his physical body It
Speaker 2: seems like it would be awful lose a shoe, lose
Speaker 2: a shoe, starts making threes, helps win the championship. It's
Speaker 2: a fucking beautiful story.
Speaker 1: So the way you see it now, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Way you see it now? Did you always see it
Speaker 2: like that?
Speaker 1: Or now if you've got no odering, you've become more
Speaker 1: experienced than there's different ways to look at this media thing.
Speaker 2: Is that how you see it now? Well, it's not
Speaker 2: even the media thing, it's sports in life. I really
Speaker 2: appreciate the hard things that people do to be excellent writers.
Speaker 2: I one of the things about the sports media that
Speaker 2: I think I can say it's probably a generalization, but
Speaker 2: we love sports. We're just not good enough to do
Speaker 2: what it is that you guys did, but telling the
Speaker 2: stories about it and loving it and celebrating it and
Speaker 2: being awed by the strength in it. I've learned that
Speaker 2: sports has taught me that. Like I told you when
Speaker 2: I started my career, the job was to remind you,
Speaker 2: not as Haslam that Shack has never had a power
Speaker 2: forward that was six'. Ten that immediately it was just
Speaker 2: to criticize or to be critical to not you, know,
Speaker 2: Uh and What i've learned is just to really by
Speaker 2: talking to you, guys having relationships with. You you guys
Speaker 2: were maximum. Professionals you guys always answered our. Questions where
Speaker 2: the high, school we're still the high school nerds that
Speaker 2: are near the jocks in high. School everything in adulthood
Speaker 2: is a little bit high. School and you guys always
Speaker 2: tolerated us buzzing around the locker, room and he never
Speaker 2: made us feel the way that you, know the locker
Speaker 2: room doors, open we might as well be spelling elephant
Speaker 2: dung and flies in your. Face you guys don't want us.
Speaker 2: There but you guys were, like always exceedingly, kind always exceedingly,
Speaker 2: professional and so you made the relationship something THAT i.
Speaker 2: BELIEVE i wish it were between media and athletes because
Speaker 2: it would be more.
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