CAMDEN, N.J. — LeBron James said his free agency decision came down to five teams: the Philadelphia 76ers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors, Miami Heat and Minnesota Timberwolves.<\/p>\n
But there was another team James had planned to join — before that franchise ended a 53-year championship drought in June: the New York Knicks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had visions of playing in [Madison Square] Garden and finishing my career in the Garden,\u201d James told ESPN on Monday during the 76ers\u2019 annual media day. \u201cOne of the best places I\u2019ve ever played.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s the No. 1 arena in the world, as far as for a basketball player. But after they beat San Antonio, I was like, \u2018Hey, I can\u2019t.\u2019 I couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
James said that the potential backlash from joining the Knicks after they had won the title rendered the idea a non-starter.<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019all wouldn\u2019t have let me lay that down, at all,\u201d James said, referring to the media at large. \u201cBut much respect to the Knicks, obviously. An unbelievable team, unbelievable players. Shout out Jalen Brunson. I love that guy, he\u2019s unbelievable. But, yeah, I\u2019m happy where I\u2019m at and I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knicks swept the Sixers in the second round in May, winning by an average of 22.3 points per game.<\/p>\n
James will get two chances to play in the Garden during the regular season: Opening Night on Oct. 19 and on Feb. 27 — plus potentially more if there is a postseason rematch.<\/p>\n
And he will still get time in New York, even though he\u2019s playing for the Sixers.<\/p>\n
James told ESPN that he will split his time living between the Big Apple and the City of Brotherly Love.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth,\u201d he said. \u201cMultiple residences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAMDEN, N.J. — LeBron James said his free agency decision came down to five teams: the Philadelphia 76ers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,122172,459,82],"class_list":["post-913055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lebron-james-sports-basketball-player-player-statscom-214152","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}