No, a YouTube video didn’t tip off ahead of time that LeBron James was signing with the Miami Heat.
The Heat posted a pending video to YouTube titled “LeBron James Introductory Press Conference” with a date later this month on Tuesday evening. Naturally, as James has yet to announce where he is playing next season, social media ran wild with theories.
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It turns out, that video was simply a mistake.
A Heat spokesperson told the Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang on Tuesday night that the video was “mistakenly made public” by the team’s social media department for “the possibility of James eventually deciding to join the Heat this offseason.” There is no validity to the video.
Whoops.
It’s not surprising that a team in the mix to land James would have such a thing prepared. That team would want to have plenty of content ready to go for the moment that news is made official.
But this YouTube Video, it turns out, was not any signaling for something to come. It doesn’t mean anything.
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James announced last month that he was going to leave the Los Angeles Lakers and continue his NBA career somewhere else. The 41-year-old’s free agency immediately became the No. 1 topic in the league.
The Heat, whom James helped lead to a pair of NBA titles earlier in his career, are believed to be in the running to land James. Team president Pat Riley said Monday that the Heat would love to have James back.
The former Los Angeles Lakers star is taking his time with his decision as to where to play next season. His agent, Rich Paul, said on Monday that he wouldn’t be rushed, and implied that James already has all of the relevant information he needs to make his decision.
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And nobody, not even Paul or NBA commissioner Adam Silver, seems to know when that is coming.
“These people don’t know anything,” Paul said. “I don’t even know when his choice is going to be made, but it could be 48 seconds [from now]. It could be 48 minutes. I don’t know. Again, you can’t make somebody know something that they don’t know.”
So, with the latest rumors now behind us, we keep waiting.
