Built to Lose - Deleted Scenes - II
A series of outtakes regarding a certain professional basketball player named LeBron James.
Welcome, folks. My name is Jake Fischer. I’m a former Sports Illustrated NBA reporter and current Bleacher Report contributor. If you’re here, you probably know my first book, ‘Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever’, will be out May 4. It covers Hinkie’s Sixers, the post-Big Three Celtics, old Kobe’s Lakers, plus so much more. And if you subscribe to this newsletter, you’ll receive a 30% off discount code for pre-order!
Like I mentioned last time, there’s a good bit of new information I learned reporting this book that didn’t fit between its two covers. Below is the second installment of the bi-weekly newsletter you’re presently reading, where I’ll share some of those scenes and anecdotes that didn’t make the final cut.
‘Built to Lose’ isn’t about LeBron James. But if you zoom out far enough, you’ll find most things modern NBA either are about LeBron James, or at least exist because of him. Tanking’s no different. Cleveland bottomed out to draft him way back in 2003. As we’ll explore in the book, the Cavaliers tanked once again after James departed for Miami in free agency—which led to three No. 1 picks in four years.
Below you’ll find a few never-reported anecdotes about LeBron. We’ll start in Miami, and the final scene… I’m sure Process-trusters will appreciate.
I.
The 2013-14 Phoenix Suns were designed to be bad. They moved on from Steve Nash in July 2012. Then under a new general manager named Ryan McDonough, the Suns kept on trading veterans for draft picks.
(Trust me, we’re getting to LeBron…)
Yet head coach Jeff Hornacek turned that motley Phoenix crew into a surprising playoff contender. Those Suns famously missed the 2014 postseason with a 48-34 record, but they had truly surged into the playoff picture.
P.J. Tucker was just starting to make his mark as a perimeter defensive specialist. He guarded the other team’s best player, and constantly nitpicked Xs and Os with Phoenix assistant coach Mike Longobardi during film sessions. They’d adjust schemes depending on their opponent. Tucker still smiles at the mention of his old coach. “Me and Longo used to fight all the time.”
When Phoenix arrived in Miami for a Nov. 25 clash with LeBron James’ reigning champion Heat, the Suns were an unexpected 7-6… and feeling themselves a little bit. James started the game with a soaring fastbreak alley-oop, demolished a Tucker layup against the backboard, drained a triple right in Tucker’s face before the halftime buzzer—and Phoenix still only trailed 50-47.
Then James went quiet. He didn’t register a field goal attempt until another open floor jam midway through the third quarter. And the last man on Phoenix’s bench decided to start chirping.
It was almost Dionte Christmas’ job to scream as loud as he could during games. “I was doing the hype stuff,” he recalls. Christmas was a 27-year-old rookie who’d gone undrafted out of Temple. He saw only 198 total minutes over 31 games that year. Christmas was ready to snipe from distance if Hornacek did call his number, but in the meantime, he would holler and dance and shout from the pine. And as the Suns’ grew on the court, Christmas’ antics seemed to increase in kind.
When James gathered the ball in front of Phoenix’s bench late that third quarter, he sized up Tucker with a few jab steps. Christmas rose to his feet, cupped his hands, and began bellowing, “It’s off! It’s off!” James’ shot indeed clanked off the iron, and Christmas kept going. “His shot’s broke!”
The next possession, James found himself in front of Phoenix’s bench once again. “It’s off! That thing’s broke!”
Hands on his knees, James turned and uttered two words Christmas will forever remember: “Keep talking.”
Longobardi was irate, imploring Christmas to “shut the fuck up!” You see, there are limits to “the hype stuff.” Poking a four-time MVP, perhaps the greatest player of all time, seems to be a pretty good line not to cross. “Don’t ever do that to a superstar!” the assistant coach continued yelling.
James promptly barreled past Tucker for an and-1 layup. He strolled over towards the Suns bench after making the bucket, fiery eyes locked onto that last seat.
Possession after possession in the fourth, Miami isolated James against Tucker on the left side of the floor. “He started shooting all these fadeaways on PJ, being like, ‘You’re too small!’” says Phoenix forward Channing Frye. Tucker received the brunt of it, but the Suns had no doubt this outburst was fueled by their little-used rookie. “He goes, ‘This is all your fault,’” Frye says.
James finished with 35 points on 11-14 shooting to lead Miami’s 107-92 victory.
“I felt so bad,” Christmas recalls. “Every time he scored, he just ran down the floor looking at me on the bench. I’m like, Oh my god.”
II.
There are two quick stories you need to know before we get to the third and final part of today’s newsletter.
The first takes place in Boston on March 19 during that 2013-14 season, with those same Miami Heat in town, only LeBron decided to sit that evening.
He spoke during pre-game locker room availability. Most stars only talk during morning shootaround and then after the final horn. Yet with a game the night before, and LeBron being inactive that evening, he spoke to reporters prior to tip against Boston. Tens of media members crowded around his locker, and I did my best to inch around that mob and talk with Greg Oden instead. Everything modern NBA typically revolves around LeBron, and that includes the comeback plight of his teammate, plus a fellow former No. 1 pick with Ohio ties.
Oden was vulnerable and honest. I was just a student at nearby Northeastern University, moonlighting as an NBA writer for SLAM Magazine. I walked away from Oden’s locker feeling I could spin that interview into gold. (Re-reading it now… I was definitely trying to spin gold.) I remember staring down at my recorder, frantically tapping the little buttons to make sure everything had saved, when I bumped into something that could have been a wall.
It was LeBron.
I looked up and instantly apologized. He was, somehow, holding a freshly-served McDonald’s McFlurry? Yellow, red, and greens M&Ms dotted the vanilla soft serve. We both just kinda stood there for a moment. I didn’t want to bob one direction, and accidentally crash into him again. So I just eyed the cup, shrugged, and for some reason asked, “You didn’t go with Oreo?”
LeBron’s eyes widened, shaking his head. “They were out of Oreo!” he said, then brushed past and walked off.
The second story you need to know takes place on the floor of Madison Square Garden. It was November 2017, and I was at Cavaliers shootaround, working on a story for SI.com. LeBron had already done his aforementioned media availability. He was going through a shooting routine with an assistant coach as I sat down on the Knicks’ bench with our old friend Channing Frye. I wondered what it was like to turn from James’ foe to his friend. “He wants you to shoot that bitch when he passes it,” Frye said.
Then LeBron overheard our conversation. He stopped firing jumpers and honed on our seats, as if I’d yelled his shot was “broke.”
Remember, Cleveland had traded Kyrie Irving to the Celtics that summer. The Cavs were supposed to start Isaiah Thomas at point guard, but a nagging hip injury prevented him from debuting until Jan. 2. Jose Calderon and Derrick Rose also struggled to stay healthy. So here was LeBron, now 33, fresh on the heels of a still-bitter end to his pairing with Irving, suddenly Cleveland’s only real threat to create off the dribble.
He started talking loudly to Frye, but it sure felt like he was talking directly to me. He saw me holding up that recorder, identical to the one that captured Oden’s words. “I didn’t know I was gonna have to be the starting point guard when the season started!” LeBron crowed. The Cavs coach stopped passing. He tucked the ball against his hip instead, and began chuckling along with the bit.
“We weren’t doing much passing this summer!” James went on, nodding to the assistant. “In the summer time we did a lot of catch-and-shoot, post-ups and shit. We were feeling good! I was like, ‘Oh shit, we’ve got four point guards this year!’ Then we start the season and it’s like, ‘LeBron’s the point guard, holy shit!’ He was sneering directly at Frye, and Frye kept smacking my arm with the back of his hand, howling.
"So I gotta work on my precision passing more,” LeBron finished, then went right back to shooting jumpers, his message having been delivered.
III.
Channing Frye joined LeBron James and the Cavaliers in February 2016, dealt by the still-rebuilding Orlando Magic to help supplement Cleveland’s run to the championship.
When Frye first started getting to know James, trading tales of old battles in the past, of course he had to mention that night back in 2013, when Christmas came for James in late November. “That was one of the first stories I ever told ‘Bron,” Frye says. “Freaking Dionte.” Turns out James recalled the entire exchange, right down to the sequence of jumpers he drilled over P.J. Tucker’s head. “LeBron has the best memory ever,” Frye attests.
James is said to boast a photographic recall, one that can log where all ten players are on the court throughout an entire game. Remember the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals, where LeBron answered “what happened there?” with a lengthy description of exactly what happened there?
Reporting this book brought one unforgettable glimpse of James’ memory. This was last January, with LeBron’s Lakers now visiting the Garden. After Los Angeles won, I found JaVale McGee in good spirits sitting at his locker. His legs were dunked into a giant ice bucket. Next to him sat a few empty stalls—and then LeBron, his own two feet submerged in freezing water.
McGee only played six games for the 2014-15 76ers, one of the highlighted seasons in ‘Built to Lose,’ but McGee’s always provided colorful commentary, and there was a chance he’d add something of note. Then again, I was chatting McGee about six games that had occurred five years earlier. Not every basketball player can be blessed with a photographic memory. So at one point I asked McGee who he was closest with on that team. You can often jog a person’s recall through stories with particular people—double if you’ve already interviewed those people—not necessarily a general period of time.
“Jerami Grant, Nerlens [Noel], we were real cool,” McGee said. “There was one more… I can’t remember his name…”
A few lockers away, LeBron decided to chip in. “Tony Wroten?”
“Mm-mm,” McGee declined. Wroten was a point guard on that Philly team, but not the name McGee struggled to place. “The one, he got crazy hair now. He play for, uh…”
“—Where he at?” LeBron asked.
“I don’t know…” McGee said. He was scrunching his face, obviously feeling a bit guilty now.
“It ain’t Nerlens?” LeBron tried.
“No, not Nerlens.”
“Is he a big or small?” LeBron wondered.
“He’s a 3,” McGee said. “He’s like 6’8”, 6’9”, skinny.”
“JaKarr Sampson?”
“Yes!” McGee beamed. “There he is. JaKarr.”
I just stood there, as if LeBron was holding an M&M McFlurry all over again. “You have the whole roster memorized?” I wondered.
“Yeah, I know them all,” he deadpanned. “Hollis Thompson. Tim Frazier…”
“But there were like, 30 guys on that team,” I said. (There were in fact 25 players on that team—still a wild total.)
“Hey man, I’ve been in this shit forever,” LeBron said. “You gotta pay attention.”
McGee start laughing. “He was good at Guess Who as a kid.”
‘Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever,” arrives on May 4.
You can subscribe to this newsletter and receive a 30% off discount code.