The LeBron James-to-Knicks conversation keeps circling back, even with New York celebrating a title of its own.
James is set to make his official Sixers debut Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, the same night the Knicks will raise their banner and get their rings for winning their first championship since 1973. New York got there without him, without another superstar like him, and with Jalen Brunson as the centerpiece. Still, the James storyline refuses to disappear.
We already knew James had “envisioned” joining the Knicks in free agency this summer. We already knew he lives in New York City and flies back and forth to Philadelphia by helicopter. And now Brian Windhorst has added another layer, saying on his podcast that James wanted the Knicks to draft him in 2003.
“There was this dream, and in fact, it was kind of LeBron's dream too. Literally, the night before he agreed to his Nike contract, in his Nike contract he got a 20 or 30% bonus if he got drafted to the Knicks.
They agreed to that the night before the lottery. That’s why it was so important to get it done before the lottery.
And when the envelope opened and showed the Knicks at number nine, there was an audible in the room because people wanted LeBron to go to the Knicks.”
The point is clear enough: the Knicks have been part of the LeBron mythology for years. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he never had a real shot to land in New York and has spent his 24th season still trying to get there. Of course, he could have signed with the team as a free agent in 2010, but he chose Miami instead.
And yes, that was his call. Nobody can seriously fault him for it. But the endless Knicks chatter keeps rolling on anyway, even now that New York is the team on the podium and James is the star standing outside the celebration.
It’s easy to understand why the Knicks would have been viewed as a natural landing spot for him, especially given the idea of a storybook finish. But James has made it sound like he turned down the Knicks after they won the title because of how it would look, while the reality appears to be that the team was never truly in pursuit.
If they had been, the picture would look a lot different. He’d be getting ready to debut in a Knicks uniform and chase another championship with them.
He has nothing left to prove, so a move to New York wouldn’t have dented his legacy. This isn’t 2016 and this isn’t Kevin Durant leaving the Thunder for the Warriors.
In that sense, a Knicks signing would have been far less surprising than his choice to go to Philadelphia. And yet, even after joining the Sixers, the discussion has centered more on his supposed Knicks dream than on where he actually is now. Or, more precisely, where he works, since he lives in New York.
Maybe the Knicks chapter still happens someday. Maybe not.
Either way, the conversation has been stretched thin. If James really wanted that New York ending, he had plenty of chances to make it real.
And after all this time, the Knicks finally reached the success their fans had been waiting for without his help. That only makes it easier to understand why they don’t have much interest in hearing about how playing in New York was supposedly his lifelong dream.
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