00:00Talked about it a little bit earlier in the show. Yesterday, Cooper Flagg made his quote-unquote NBA debut, his summer league debut with the Dallas Mavericks. First points of that game was actually Bronny stepped back over Cooper Flagg, hit a little jumper at the elbow.
00:17So Cooper Flagg ended with 10 points, shot 5 of 21. But the play of the game, the sequence of the game, he got a block on one end, brought it up the floor, fast break, transition, hit his teammate for a wide open three to take the lead. And that's how they ended up winning the game.
00:36And Bronny's dad, LeBron, left the Miami Heat 11 years ago today. It was 11 years ago today that the SA and SI came out and he left. We had connectivity problems with Solana in the first segment, so I don't think you got to share where you were when that news broke.
00:54I remember it like it was yesterday. I'm a junior in college. I'm up in Tallahassee, FSU. One of my best friends is going to FSU. I'd go there all the time. I'm up at FSU, wake up. I am hungover from the night before. I'm puking my brains out because I must have had like six, four locos the night before.
01:12And as I'm hunched over the toilet all morning, throwing up, I get the push notification that LeBron James is leaving the Miami Heat, going back home to Cleveland.
01:23So I just spent the rest of the day in that same bathroom, throwing up and crying and weeping. Terrible day.
01:31Wild day.
01:32What hotel were we at? Is that the Smokestack?
01:35We may have been, yeah, at the Excalibur.
01:39Oh, goodness, yeah.
01:40Love the Excalibur.
01:42If you like Newport, you love the Excalibur.
01:46Love the Excalibur.
01:47I've always said that should not look like a medieval castle from the outside. It should look like an ashtray.
01:54You know, old Eduardo smokes. It makes him feel at home walking through that casino.
01:59Holy mackerel.
02:00It's crazy. The other day, you know, I haven't seen my parents in a couple weeks. My dad, my sister had a baby. They're up in New York, whatever.
02:06I haven't seen my dad.
02:08I'm at the gas station pumping gas.
02:10Some guy next to me is ripping a heater, which really is crazy to rip a heater at the gas station.
02:15The gas pump, he's ripping a heater.
02:17And I kind of get a whiff.
02:19I'm like, man, I miss my dad.
02:21I was like, man, let me get, let me get a little, another little, take another rip on that, bro.
02:31Papa?
02:33Papa?
02:33Let me get a drag, brother.
02:36Hello?
02:36If you were at breakfast, Hawk, I was in the room, probably with a hangover, crying about all the money I lost at the roulette table the night before.
02:50I don't really remember, but I know how my Vegas trips go.
02:53I'm telling you, I was having breakfast with Lewis, and I was just, and the news came across, and I could not believe it.
02:59My stomach dropped.
03:02I couldn't believe it.
03:03I gave a 0% chance to LeBron leaving the heat.
03:10Like, just, it didn't make sense to me.
03:13Like I said earlier in the show, everybody was having fun.
03:16I was having fun, so everyone must have been having fun.
03:19Was it a, was it the right decision?
03:24He won a title for Cleveland.
03:26It ends up being the right decision, which is why I was rooting so hard against Cleveland those four years he was there.
03:31But I'll say this, Hawk, the reason why I think in Miami we gave it a 0% chance wasn't even, like, the lore of the heat anymore.
03:39Remember Dan Gilbert, how he just, he, like, mother bleeped LeBron on the way out, said that the self-proclaimed king wouldn't win a title before the Cavs did.
03:49Like, he literally, he disrespected LeBron James.
03:53So in our minds, we're like, you're going to go back to that?
03:57You're going to go back to playing with Boobie Gibson?
03:59But he could have gone anywhere.
04:00He didn't have to go to Cleveland.
04:01Like, he could have gone anywhere.
04:02I just gave it 0% chance that he was going to go anywhere.
04:05I thought the Cleveland stuff was nonsense.
04:07Right.
04:07But the way that it plays out, it is funny.
04:10He was so disrespected by Dan Gilbert, and in return, he disrespected Pat Riley.
04:15Like, what a weird, what a weird flex.
04:20If he stays in Miami, they just keep rebuilding around LeBron.
04:24He wins, what, another three?
04:28Would you look at him better or worse than if he went back to Cleveland 1-1, then went to the Lakers and won another one?
04:34Me personally, as a Heat fan, or are you talking about an NBA fan?
04:37Let's take the, let's take our heat glasses off.
04:40Like, I think his path makes the lore of his career a lot better than him.
04:44Him getting a championship for the city of Cleveland is, I mean, really what he set out to do.
04:50He may have disappointed them by leaving, but he gave them what they needed.
04:54Like, he got to right a wrong, if that was a wrong.
04:59So, I get that.
05:01If this dude would have stayed here for 10 seasons, 15 seasons, he, I think, would be more in the conversation for greatest of all time than, and he is in that conversation.
05:13But, for me, it's Michael LeBron.
05:17If LeBron had won six titles with the Heat, seven titles with the Heat, like he predicted, like, I think you'd be having a different conversation.
05:28You're right there with MJ.
05:30Hey, if you go win six.
05:33Oh.
05:34The thing is, like, who knows what happened.
05:35I mean, Dwayne Wade, in 14, that series against San Antonio was a shell of himself.
05:42And Wade had some good seasons after that.
05:44Like, the 16 playoffs, the Heat are a game away from the Eastern Conference Finals.
05:48They would have played LeBron.
05:50They lost to Toronto on the road.
05:52Like, Wade looked like Wade.
05:53Remember, that's a purple shirt guy game in that first round.
05:56Like, there was some good, there was some gas left in the tank, but that 14 NBA Finals, Wade was a shell of himself because of me.
06:05And you just don't, I mean, like, there's all these, like, Chris Bosh is still going to get blood clots, so he's not going to be there at some point.
06:12Right.
06:13Are they still going to get Goran Dragic?
06:15Like, all these things.
06:17And then, last season, they would have gotten Luka.
06:21Yeah, but then, no, but I know it's a great use to extrapolate that out, but.
06:27There's going to be guys that would have come to Miami and played with LeBron.
06:29It's still Pat Riley building the team.
06:31Yeah.
06:31So, you have the best player in the world, and you have the best executive in the NBA together for 10, 12 years.
06:37It would have been special.
06:38I don't know the names on those teams, but they were going to be amazing teams.
06:42But that's why people like me were so outraged.
06:46Team Petty was born.
06:48Not because, I mean, LeBron leaving was, you know, it hurt.
06:51But he screwed the heat that offseason.
06:55He could have, in my opinion, he knew he was leaving.
06:58In my opinion.
06:58He ended up with Shabazz Napier.
07:00I mean, he knew.
07:01Made us draft that little itty-bitty boy.
07:04He knew that he was leaving.
07:06And he waited until all the free agents had signed elsewhere to then tell the Miami Heat what he was going to do so that the Heat couldn't go and find other guys.
07:17You know what we ended up doing?
07:18He took care of Chris Bosh.
07:20Danny Granger was the Heat's big signing that offseason because there was nobody else left.
