New details have emerged in the now infamous plane ride with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade from Las Vegas that ended James’ time with the Miami Heat.
Beginning at the 39-minute mark of the most recent episode of “The Lowe Post” podcast with Zach Lowe, Brian Windhorst shared some details about the mysterious trip from Las Vegas to Miami that seemed to signal the end of the Heatles era in Miami.
As it has been documented, the Miami Heat met with James and his people in Las Vegas, but were left in the dark about James’ decision. What hadn’t been spoken about to this point, is the “WHY?” in “Why didn’t Dwyane know what James would do?”
Windhorst clarified that a bit, beginning at the 40:40 timestamp:
"“Lee Jenkins knew, before the Cavs, he knew before Dwyane Wade. And of course I asked, ‘Why wouldn’t you tell Dwyane? If you guys are like the greatest of friends, why wouldn’t you tell him?’ And the answer that Rich Paul gave me, I thought, at first sounded fishy, but the more you think about it, the more it’s true. Which was, ‘we couldn’t ask Dwyane to carry that secret.’"
If you rewind even further back in time, the most clairvoyant James has ever been with his intentions has been when he announced he was going to the NBA. He’s always played his thought processes off the court close to the chest. When he signed with the Miami Heat, no one knew his intentions until The Decision.
In this 2014 instance, however, leaving his best friend in the dark, was his right and noble, but still a bit misleading as well. If there was one thing I would criticize James for, it would be the idea that he had the onions to have his essay detailing his return to Cleveland edited while Wade was on the plane.
Although Wade was along for the ride, he was better off not knowing what was going on. Knowing what James’ move was would have signified either having to betray his friend’s trust or betray the organization he’d been through so much with.
Wade says he had a feeling James was leaving, which confirmed his allegiance to James and their bond, while also removing the burden of knowing from himself. Did he know for sure and just decide not to tell? Maybe we’ll find out years from now.
Even though it appears that both James and the Heat have moved on somewhat, we still get these details that make the situation interesting all over again.
Something that my grandmother used to tell me that translates well with this situation was this: “How you get them is how you lose them.” James left the Cavs in the dark in 2010 and no one in Miami complained, so the idea that Heat management and fans get upset because they believe James owed the team a heads up is one I can never agree with.
What I am about to say comes from a place that is not just a fan of LeBron James, but more of a supporter of professional athletes in general: James didn’t owe the Heat organization a thing. The idea of the player “doing right by the organization” is convoluted, mainly because we don’t hold the organization to the same standard.
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Too often, players are cast aside in the name of business and there’s nowhere near enough backlash or questioning of the team. By leaving Wade out of the loop, James removed the idea of organizational loyalty and freed him of living with the burden of whether or not to tell Heat brass what he knew.
If we don’t demand teams to give details on how they operate when it’s time to make a decision, we can’t do the same for the players as well.