Two weeks. I had two weeks.
The Knicks won the NBA Finals on June 13th — first championship since 1973, fifty-three years of waiting, Jalen Brunson dropping 45 in Game 5 like it was nothing — and now Shams Charania is on ESPN telling me LeBron James has informed the Lakers they can move on without him. And every credible report has him heading to Golden State to team up with Stephen Curry.
https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/2071988062259736871
My sister texted me from the group chat: “u good lmaoooo.” No. I am not good.
Rich Paul, Klutch Sports CEO, delivered the news personally, which is the kind of thing that happens when you’re LeBron James and the entire sports world needs to feel the vibration of your footsteps. LeBron’s exit from Los Angeles has been building for months but nobody wanted to say it out loud. Now Draymond Green already declined his $27.7 million option to clear cap space, and the “Big 4” plan is happening: LeBron, Curry, Draymond, plus whoever they can pry loose in an Anthony Davis deal or talk Jimmy Butler into joining off an ACL.
Kalshi has Warriors at 76%. Seventy-six percent.
https://x.com/JTFOz/status/2071991397654130703
I watched Brunson’s ring get slipped onto his finger two weeks ago and cried a little bit. I’m not embarrassed about it. My mom was on the phone with me and she was crying too, and she listens to WFAN every single day at the dental office, so she has earned every tear. We were happy. We were genuinely, uncomplicatedly happy. The universe looked at that happiness and went: yeah, we’ll fix that.
The “Big 4” thing is what actually keeps me up. LeBron on the mid-level exception (reportedly $15.1 million), meaning the Warriors get a forty-one-year-old LeBron at a discount, paired with a thirty-eight-year-old Curry who still shoots like the game was designed specifically for him. On paper that’s a nightmare coalition. In practice it’s a team held together with duct tape and nostalgic energy from guys who’ve won enough that losing doesn’t destroy them.
Here’s the complicating thing, and I hate that I’m saying it: watching LeBron and Curry go one last time together, two guys who defined this entire era just trying to squeeze out one more run at 41 and 38. That would actually be something to see. In any other universe where the Knicks weren’t standing in the way, I’d be fully on board.
This is not that universe. This is the one where we just won and could theoretically repeat, and I’ll need about six more months before I can appreciate the poetry of it.
Signing period opens July 6. I’ve got until then to figure out how to feel.
Probably going to eat a lot of pasta about it in the meantime.
