Pat Riley reflects on his time with LeBron James in Miami and believes they could’ve had a 8-10 year title window
Shouldnt have took them cookies
Literally his micro-management drove Lebron away. What makes it even worse it’s not like we are talking Joel/Zion/Shaq Lebron literally has one of the best kept bodies in sports and has gone longer than any other B-ball player of significance. Like you really threw away that 10 year window cause you couln’t let a grown man eat cookies.
Literally, no. All indications are that Lebron always planned to leave–he described his time in Miami as college, and people move on from college. His goal was always to maximize his career and his brand, and he achieved one step of that plan in Miami. He didn’t believe the team could compete for a championship, so it was time to move on. A subset of redditors love simple-minded explanations like “he took my cookies–I’m leaving!”, though, so that will be treated as fact, as absurd as that idea is.
LeBron probably didn’t anticipate the vitriol he got for leaving for Miami, Wade’s decline and Bosh’s odd fit. Then he saw that Cleveland was building a squad, that he was the missing piece and that he could re-build his legacy.
And he was definitely right, that Cleveland chip did absolute wonders for his perception and PR. He’s going to have a very complex legacy due to being at the complete forefront of the American sports and culture for 20+ years, but him winning a chip in Cleveland like that is the crown jewel of his legacy
Yeah going back to Cleveland didn’t 100% absolve him, but I would say it got it done to about 99%.
Lakers chip really blew it open. Would have been sick outside of the bubble but honestly it’s just another interesting quirk
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Some fans hated him at the time, but a lot of us felt lucky to have him for four years.
I said leaving for Miami.
I think it’s more that he saw his job in Cleveland as unfinished.
No way he felt they couldn’t compete right? I mean maybe in the short term but when he went back to Cleveland they still had to make some big moves to be a championship caliber team.
2016-2020 LeBron on a retooled Miami team would’ve done just fine in the east.
I’m sure that he had enormous confidence that he could get any team to compete, but they got annihilated by the Spurs. And as another poster pointed out, Wade seemed to be declining because of his knees. I’m sure that Lebron was more than annoyed by the cookie issue, but he’s always been very calculating about the moves he makes.
Yea. The heat went back to the finals in 20-21 acting like lebron couldnt take that team back there easily is foolish looking at his success every where else hes been since
I think being Lebron James, being THAT good and dominant, and being self aware enough of his skills, public perception, branding, legacy, co-stars, he had to think “I need to win every year I am in my prime, and I don’t think I can win it next year here.”
I remember watching him dominate after his third season/second ring, how good he was, how old he was, and thinking “this guy… could actually win the next 4 in a row.”
He described his time in Miami as college, after the fact. When he got there he was planning to be there for a long time as evidenced by the “..not 5, not 6, not 7” comment. Pat Riley fumbled by trying to assert dominance for absolutely no reason at all.
I think a bigger factor was that the team was on a downswing. Wade’s injuries were adding up, the role players were aging, and the draft picks weren’t panning out. Meanwhile the Cavs had a young Kyrie, a number 1 pick, cap space, etc.
LeBron just wanted to win one with his first son Kyrie. It’s similar to what he’s doing now with bronny
If you think Lebron left Miami because of cookies then you probably weren’t paying attention
Imagine they would have stayed together had they not lost to the spurs, you don’t break up a team that just won 3 in a row
Owner got cheap. Let Mike Miller walk and couldn’t replace due to cap rules.
Beat me to it!
Sounds familiar….. like with doncic and look where he ended up.
Who else had their cookies taken from them? I want to know who joins the Lakers next.
Surprised it hasn’t happened to Zion yet
No cookies will prevent him on going back to the Cavs. He might stay a lil like a couple of years with the Heat if they didn’t took them cookies but Bron going back to the Cavs was his destiny. There is no 8 to 10 year window.
LeCookies
What’s the deal with le cookies?
It goes to show how badly this subreddit is astroturfed by Nike shills that every last single career failure by LBJ has to be deflected onto someone or something else.
It’s very interesting to think in retrospect. Bron has been gone 12 years(insane to think heatles started 16 years ago) and has won 2 chips in 5 appearances
Could the heat infrastructure potentially gotten him more than 2 chips in 12 years? Probably, but then he doesn’t have the Cleveland ring, which we all agree is his coolest and most impactful.
Def a cool thought exercise tho.
Bosh got blood clots right after Lebron left so it would’ve taken years to become championship contenders even if he stayed
To be fair the heat even without bosh would’ve still been contenders with how ass the east was
LeBron made the right choice to go back to Cleveland both from a legacy and logical perspective. They had just tanked, gathered a bunch of things to trade for K-Love, and Kyrie was up and coming, meanwhile the Heatles were on the downhill. You couldn’t predict Bosh’s blood clots, but Wade was regressing. Cleveland were the right team for basketball reasons, and on the plus side, he got to repair his legacy.
As a Bron fan, I think people are seriously forgetting the general perception of LeBron before and after going back to Cavs.
All I remember is LeBron leaving and jerseys being burned. Then he returned, won a ring, and left again. The most vivid video being one where someone lays out a LeBron jersey in the same manner as the burning video and the slaps a “Thank you” note on it.
I think from 2010 (decision) to 2012 (first ring), the hate was at its highest. I am telling you, any time LeBron’s name is mentioned in any public place, you’d have strangers just yell out “he’s a BITCH!” or something like that, and other strangers chiming in, high fiving each other like they best buddies. I don’t even live in the states lol. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.
Yeah he became a villain and the short black mask era was the cherry on top of that saga. The he wins and leaves and becomes hometown hero and puts on multiple finals masterclasses and the whole narrative changed
It definitely helped that he was so dominant when finally getting past the Celtics in 2012. Game 6 still lives rent free in my brain 14 years later.
KD took it to another level though, and he never repaired it with OKC like Bron did. It’s only gotten more and more toxic, then we went from KD -> Literally Hitler -> Lakers WB -> Embiid MVP. Maybe it was always like this, but it feels like something changed with the Decision. After that social media has made people more unhinged when even the dumbest mf can have an audience.
And yet, I don’t think KD hate comes close to Heat Bron hate
Because LeBron was the chosen one drafted to his hometown team and left them in his prime. If KD had did the same move but left the wizards MAYBE it gets as bad but I doubt it even then. LeBron is just a bigger start than KD
It never made sense to me the Lebron hate. He never forced to be traded. He always left as a free agent. KD, Kyrie, Harden those guys all forced trades multiple times when they didn’t like things.
Forcing a trade is 100% better if you are a fan of the team. Nets have way more assets to work on a rebuild with than if KD, Harden, and Kyrie left for free. Look at the Rockets now, they are in a better spot than most because of the haul they got for Harden.
People called KD a pussy when he went to GS. People called LeBron slurs when he went to Miami.
100%
Him leading those Cleveland teams that went toe to toe vs Warriors was incredible
They would contend to make the finals but they had no realistic way to build enough talent to beat whoever came out of the west
Imagine Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole trying to stop Steph Curry in the finals
To be fair, if we said the same statement but said Matthew Delladova we probably would take Mario Chalmers.
In hindsight, which is my point.
Chalmers slander is wild.
I would’ve loved to see a Wade/Klay SG matchup though
Wades knees were beyond cooked by then
While you’re right, nobody can really guard curry.. There were times when Chalmers and Cole were a menace defensively.
Cavs were better than Heat and they needed the most historic fuckin run of perfomances to beat the Warriors for that 1 title… Heat wouldve “competed” as much as any other team in the east if they had Lebron.
I’d argue Cavs would’ve won in 2015 if Love and Kyrie weren’t injured
Yeah after LeBron left the Heat the only one who was winning the East was… LeBron.
The heat were barely deep enough with that big 3, bosh and wade fell off as LeBron left, and they had little consistent talent outside of some OGs like ray
The Bulls nearly went up 3-1 vs the Cavs in 2015. I think they would have been better than the Heat. That was a good team that year led by Jimmy Butler, a still all-NBA level Pau Gasol, and Joakim Noah.
Bosh and then WADE’S knees!
This is the real problem here. Riley is trying to continue an argument with Lebron that he had no business winning. He pushed Wade out, he pushed Lebron out, he pushed Jimmy out. It’s his fault, not Lebron’s.
He thinks it’s showing his cleverness, but it’s pretty disrespectful to Bosh and Wade. As we can see, Riley can’t actually replace talent with a snap of his fingers.
Jimmy and LeBron didn’t get pushed out. Jimmy got greedy and wanted a max to play 60% of the season and LeBron seen the writing on the wall for that Heat team. Wades body was falling apart and they were hard against the cap with no significant moves they could make to improve by the next year.
Wade also fell off pretty quickly after. Bull’s Wade was just two years after. Wade didn’t even play for another 6-8 years after anyway.
Wasn’t getting Brons stem cells anymore
I’m not so sure it would’ve taken very long. The year after LeBron left, Miami went 37-45 which is kind of nuts to think about. With LeBron, that team wins 50 games again, not too different than Cleveland’s 53. In the years that followed, Miami didn’t finish worse than .500 until 2018-19
That’s because Miami refuses to tank, not because they ‘earned’ all those wins. That was during the Process Sixers, for example.
It was never going to work out with Lebron and Riley long term, because neither would cede control. Hell, Riley is still arguing with Bron through the media a decade later. He can’t let it go, and he never would have given Lebron the control he wanted.
he never would have given Lebron the control he wanted.
Spot on. We can joke about “LeGM” as much as we want but LeBron has two more rings post-Miami on the teams he’s wanted to be on with the players he’s wanted to be with. Hell he even helped get his own son drafted by his current team.
It hasn’t always worked out, which is why you need someone to tell your star player “No”, but you go ahead and try telling LeBron that.
If Bron stayed in Miami they could have gotten someone to replace Bosh fairly quickly. I mean even K love was right there shortly after. Bosh probably would have not gotten his massive extension if Bron stayed also.
exactly, this is revisionist BS by Pat Riley… Mickey Arison, the Heat owner was happy with the two ‘chips and wasn’t willing to invest and pay the luxury tax which upset Lebron… it’s like Milwaukee Bucks ownership saying that if Giannis had stayed they would have won more titles
it’s like Milwaukee Bucks ownership saying that if Giannis had stayed they would have won more titles
Unless you are a time traveler, which in case that is cool as hell, Giannis is still in Milwaukee.
Who’s to say a Lebron Heat team doesn’t attract other FA’s?
Definitely off the top of my head the only real path they would have is to get lucky with the 2016 cap spike but the only thing that truly moves the needle then is KD
2015 he still gets out the east and loses in the final. IIRC they were able to void his contract from the books, so they would’ve been able to get some extra pieces
Like Hassan Whiteside…
Bron has been gone 12 years(insane to think heatles started 16 years ago)
Always breaks my mental timeline to see that Lebron was only 29 when he left the Heat.
Wow I feel old now
It’s been eleven years since these Warriors won their first championship.
Tbf the Heatles feel like a long time ago. Hell, the bubble feels like a good amount of time ago. It’s just crazy that LeBron is still playing.
You want crazy? MJ and LeBron missed playing against each other by one season. Jordan retired (for good) after 02-03; Bron made his debut a few months later.
Just thinking about the heatles against the dynasty warriors is wild.
Couldn’t have happened because wade was older and bosh with the blood clots but in a different universe it’d be nuts
heatles vs baby warriors led to a great celly by lebron when he hit the game winner
https://youtu.be/YI1GLB-byeQ?si=tNiPD-m_–NxSBLZ
I think he’d have more rings, and the super team, team jumping argument wouldn’t hold much water either.
*THEE coolest and most impactful
We never woulda had LeBron and Kyrie crushing the souls of the 73 win Warriors.
Probably no KD to the Warriors
So . KD to the Heat then?
The second hardest road
Probably. Heat would’ve been able to create the cap space for it.
In another universe we’d see texts about Riley and Spoelstra being Hitler and Mussolini and something about Butler selling out his own people to listen to be a Swifty
This is why I hate these what if questions.
It’s a man’s league… and his feelings just got hurt.
all thanks to draymond being suspended and that in turn led to the kd warriors
K 2015 warriors played against the cavs with 3 of their starting 5 out majority of the games, have shame
If they had a fully healthy lineup we wouldn’t have gotten the game 7 lebron block
And if 2015 cavs had a healthy lineup bron wouldve walked in with a ring
I’d much rather live in a world where Cavs win in 2015 and Warriors win in 2016. “Load Management” wouldn’t be nearly as rampant in that universe.
have shame
wasn’t even talking to you, weirdo. have shame
Whatever team you put around lebron in the 2010s was a title condender so this is very obvious. That Heat team was dead after those 4 years and as we have seen it would’ve took major restructuring.
He should’ve left for Cleveland. Then went back to Miami in 2019. Skipped the Lakers malarkey.
I for one am grateful for two things, his Lakers malarkey, and the fact that someone else uses the term malarkey.
Stay up and stay blessed big dick.
This malarkey won’t go on much longer.
insert eagle catching baseball picture
He should have stayed in Cleveland
Woulda been worse than the lakers and that’s saying something. Cavs needed to be dogshit for a few years to rebuild assets
yup and that’s why lebron left the first time, they had to be dogshit to be able to rebuild and you can’t do that with lebron on your team
Yep it was a smart move. Laced Cleveland with a bunch of assets to rebuild. Then when it was time to come back he flipped those assets for his title run rosters.
Could’ve done the same thing with Miami. Switch back and forth every few years while they tank for assets to trade when he comes back lol
Imagine a star player actually trying this method and collecting rings like Halloween Candy. Would still require the orgs to be smart and lucky though.
would require the player to be in their prime forever too so there’s enough time for multiple rebuilds lol
Yeah not many people would be able to pull this off. Bron is definitely built different.
That 2019 Lakers team was worse than the 2018 Cavs team by far, no? I mean, Lebron made the finals with the latter, while he missed the playoffs entirely with the former
I wouldn’t have minded him going somewhere like Philly or Minnesota in 2019. Him going to the Lakers was bad for the league
And not get a new space jam? I don’t know.
Would’ve been crazy but the Heat weren’t that good in 2019, Jimmy wasn’t there yet and Bam hadn’t broken out.
Lakers gave him his best #2 ever lol
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but AD is not better than D Wade. The best ability is availability.
Nope. 2020 AD is the best teammate LeBron has ever had. Maybe 2011 DWade, the last year of his peak, could be considered, but im still taking AD
Agree
They also fit each other better
Wade wasn’t an iron man or anything, he missed plenty of games. The difference was Miami Lebron could take you to a top 2 seed alone.
The difference is that Wade was a winner long before Lebron ever showed up and showed him how to be a leader.
People seems to have forgotten Chris Bosh is on the team. It was never DWade vs AD but DWade + Chris Bosh vs AD.
Over an entire career yeah, but peak 2020 AD was the best complementary player to give LeBron.
2020 AD > 2011-14 Wade. Neither Kyrie nor Wade complimented LeBron the way AD did and unlike those other 2, there was a skill that AD was actually superior to LeBron in (defense). With Wade & Kyrie, LeBron was still the best scorer, passer & defender on the team
We would’ve had a much smoother transition if Bosh didn’t get blood clots
Yeah that roster was aging fast and the cap situation was brutal. They would’ve needed to nail some late draft picks or bargain signings to keep it rolling.
problem with the heatles was the team was getting old and fatigue from playing like 100 games a year since 2011. wade’s knees were shot and bosh had blood clots, they would’ve had to trade a lot to get younger and retool the team.
They definitely would have needed a retool year or two and that’s gonna be hard sell for a prime LeBron so I’m with ya there
yea, Finals for 6 or 8 or 10 years straight is not happening. the warriors missed the playoffs entirely twice in a row before having another chance. spurs had a long dynasty but they had multiple 1st round exits and even their deeper runs they got swept or only won 1 game in later rounds.
“maybe even 10” is crazy lol
and if team made the Finals 8 years straight there would have been rule changes or a lockout or something before they reached 10
yea, Finals for 6 or 8 or 10 years straight is not happening
I swear someone did that once recently. Old balding guy on the Lakers. I think he might have actually played for the Heat at some point even
i mean if a team is able to somehow win #1 draft picks while making 4 straight finals, they could probably make it 8 straight sure
but i don’t think Pat Riley is talking about wishing he just jumped over to the Cavs alongside Lebron lol. i think he cares primarily about the team and not the individual streak.
Yeah i was being kind of a dick about it
Stuff like this is why I think Lebron making 8 straight Finals is going to look insane as time goes on. People mostly focus on the physical toll that all those extra playoff games puts on your body, but very few people talk about the mental toll. Lebron not only stayed physically healthy for those 8 years but he also transformed himself from somewhat of a mentally weak player to arguably the most resilient player in NBA history in terms of mental fortitude.
The obvious problem was Wade’s crumbling knees, which made it a pipe dream from the jump. Bosh’s blood clots came out of nowhere and torpedoed a decently built team.
It wasn’t possible for LeBron to stay in Miami. Wade wasn’t capable of being a #2 anymore and I can’t imagine LeBron wanted to or wanted to be perceived as kicking Wade out of Miami
It would had been easy to still retool during that time. Some players were gonna go sign in Miami, they would had still gotten their center (forgot his name) from YMCA, they would had still be contending.
It doesn’t change the fact that Chris Bosh got blood clot in 2015.
Hassan Whiteside the goat
People always say Bosh was underrated for Miami. But when you watched the playoff runs he was getting absolutely destroyed by opposing big men. It’s one thing if it’s Dirk. But he made Duncan look like he was 27 again. And he got outplayed by Roy Hibbert too.
He was always a 4. He had to play stretch 5 to fit LeBron AND Wade who needed lanes open. Hibbert, Garnett stepping out of the paint in pursuit made slashing and driving easier.
But defensively, he had limits to what he could do always and that wasn’t helped playing with no big man, especially down the stretch. Duncan was going against Shaq, often as a centre so he wasn’t going to be moved by Bosh. Tim rebounds that Ray Allen corner 3 point second chance if he’s on the court.
Yep, and Bosh was also paired with older, undersized, under-talented 5’s in Miami. His best 5 he played with was an old Birdman lol. He was going to be able to bang inside with Hibbert.
Chris was part of the Big 3 but he wasn’t a superstar that was going to dominate series. No shit he got outplayed by the best PF’s ever.
He also got destroyed by Roy Hibbert. And scored zero points in a NBA finals game (game 7). I’m sure you guys got some good excuses though for Bosh.
First of all, flair up before we proceed in this thread
> He had to play stretch 5 to fit LeBron AND Wade who needed lanes open
People legit forget that the heat basically were struggling to find a good center and no team was willing to trade for obvious reasons, that’s why they ended up with guys like birdman and oden
Considering what LeBron was doing in the east the next 4 years he’s probably right to some degree but they’d need to get more talent around LeBron with Wade declining and with what happened to Bosh and how the team generally was when LeBron left.
Considering that Wade’s knees were dust and Bosh only had a couple more seasons left, they would have had to make some big moves to extend the window. It was closing before he left
Wade still had some juice left in 2016 with the infamous purple shirt guy. Also the fact that Gasol was ready to come to Miami had LeBron stayed, I don’t think it’s far fetched to say LeBron would have more titles if he stayed in Miami
Interesting, I hadn’t heard that about Gasol. How would you have been able to afford him?
I think we were trying to free up our mid level exception for him to come at a discount. This is of course assuming the big 3 came back at a discount to keep the team together
Yeah Wade could not carry a team in a finals run anymore. LeBron knew it. It was sad to see because we knew it was over.
Any team with LeBron during that period would have been a title contender so yeah sure I guess I agree
Any team with LeBron during that period was a title contender. Nine Finals appearances in ten years with three different teams.
Pat’s ego got in the way of managing talent that didn’t conform to his institutional culture. Just look at how things ended with Wade, Butler, Lebron. There’s always multiple perspectives of course but he’s definitely not one to keep long term relationships with.
Lebron would’ve left anyway because Wade and Bosh looked washed in the 2014 finals. Butler was 35 demanding another max contract Riley was right to not to give it to him.
This is probably true - but also, it’s that personality type that consistently lands great talent, while positioning them to win. The track record speaks for itself. He’s done a terrific job in Miami in terms of winning. (And this is coming from someone who despises Riley).
LeBron is the only mistake he had. Everybody likes running up the score, but two championships with LeBron was good. He did let his ego get the best of him when dealing with LeBron.
But the others? Wade was not a mistake. Butler was not a mistake.
Wade was not a mistake from a basketball sense but from a cultural sense. The Heat weren’t winning shit anyways after Bosh’s blood clots. Him not re-signing the franchise GOAT over a few million dollars isn’t a good look.
Maybe you shouldn’t have scolded him in press conference then
I mean, LeBron still did.
Tell em
I think they’d definitely make a bunch more finals considering LeBron managed to just pick a team and win the east 8 years in a row, but I highly doubt they would have ever been able to contend with any of the teams coming out of the West in that period, especially given that Bosh had his blood clots effectively ending his career shortly after he left.
LeBron managed to just pick a team
A team that had the first pick 3 times in 4 years.
yeah and one of those they used on Anthony Bennett.
He could have joined any team in the East during that time period and made the Finals with them. Even if he joined the Hornets, Lebron + Kemba + whatever other role players they would have traded for would have easily been enough.
How many of those would have been losses? They were already a ray allen 3 away from being 1-3.
Wade was becoming washed by mid-2012 and a corpse by the 2014 playoffs, Bosh was on his way out, and the rest of the team was mega washed. How exactly was that an 8- to 10-year window?
Because 2015-2018 Lebron was a cheat code.
In 2015 they swept the Hawks in the ECF without Love and with kyrie playing two games.
In 2018 the ecf is where that famous infographic comes from showing the leading scorers in the series where Lebron was #1 and Boston had the next 5, with Cleavland won at the bottom.
Now having a window and actually winning are different things.
That’s fair. I guess I just don’t see any scenario where the husk of the 2014 Heat team, already pretty washed-up, wins any more titles. Maybe they net a few more high 40s or low 50s seasons and limp into a few more NBA finals, but that’s it.
I truly believed it could’ve lasted 6–8, maybe even 10 years
yea ok. Bosh(sadly, blood clots) and Wade broke down earlier than Lebron thought and that’s why he went back to CLE(them getting the first pick a couple of times helped)
Them getting the first pick a FEW times helped
All because of those cookies Pat
Just for LeBron to give up cookies in the end
especially LeBron,
Mainly LeBron. Should have filled an entire plane with cookies.
I mean it is the only plane that held LeBron accountable also the place he had the most team and individual success but he didn’t like being held accountable
He had to go back. Cleveland was in a much better position to win titles because of Wade’s decline and Kyrie’s rise (among other things), but he also had to go back. People don’t remember how LeBron was viewed after he went to Miami. It really wasn’t different from how people viewed KD, though I think today most people agree that KD’s move was objectively weaker. A lot of people viewed his Miami titles as tainted.
A lot of LeBron’s public life has been kind of manufactured, he can be a bit of a phony. But I truly believe he felt in his heart and soul that if he didn’t win one championship in Cleveland, his career would always feel incomplete. I think he was right about that and Cleveland was in a terrific position to put the right roster around him to get that championship. If KD never goes to Golden State, he probably wins more than one. Either way, his greatest accomplishment came with Cleveland in 2016.
Wade’s knees were done by the end of the 2014 run. Literally played worse in those finals than 2011 Lebron.
I guess whatever team Lebron was on would have probably made it out of the East, but they wouldn’t beat GS.
Pretty easy to think that with the benefit of seeing LeBron win two more over that 10 year window.
But LeBron fuckin leaves teams high and dry once the cap situation is fucked and the players he wants turn washed
Wouldve been nice but the cleveland story was pretty amazing
Riley is the best storyteller in the league.
Fight me.
Pat only has himself to blame. But then again, the way LeBron comes to teams and tries to steamroll management with his diva antics, I’m not surprised Pat said fuck you and them cookies hoe.
They were a Tim Duncan finger roll or Spus rebound away from only one Title.
The “Heatles” underachieved.
The problem is D Wade was a shell of himself by their 3rd year so I don’t see how the run could’ve continued unless they were willing to trade Wade right away which I doubt they would’ve
Not on Wade’s knees
Or Bosh’s blood
Just lose to GS with a different jersey
The writing was on the wall in year 4. They were done.
They would not have. They were a shell of themselves in 2014 and then 2015 and 16 at minimum would have been like 45-50 win 2nd round exit years at best even with prime lebron while they retool.
I love Pat but there’s no way. Wade was off the team in 2 years and Bosh was medically retired in 3
Then you should have gone to the guy and said hey. You’re the new leader of the franchise, but you didn’t because at the end of the day you’re an old white guy who thinks he owns a bunch of minority players
yeah, but you couldn’t get out of your way. You thought it was about the “heat culture”, how’s that doing now without any stars?
I strongly doubt this. The roster was rough outside the stars and it was pretty clear wade was past his prime. Lebron knew what he was doing when he bailed. He would have left the lakers a few years ago if he still cared about winning championships.
Yeah right with SA, GS, Okc there
Both sides contributed to the end but honestly Pat shouldn’t have overstepped the way he did. Sure you’re Pat Riley but you’re also someone that’s supposed to be behind the scenes. There might not be a player EVER that took their conditioning as seriously as Bron…
Yet LeBron lost overwhelmingly in a Mickey Mouse conference on a super team…
Rage baiting is a dead art form now.
Truth hurts I guess
He’s not wrong. Miami would’ve gotten annihilated by OKC in 2014 as well. Wade was a shell of himself
Lebron was never going to stick around while Miami fucked off Wade. Heat weren’t going to retool around LeBron