ESPN's Brian Windhorst aka "The LeBron Whisperer" made a bombshell appearance on Bill Simmons' podcast yesterday. Face-to-face with Simmons (who was probably squealing inside at all the #insider #information being dropped), Windhorst spilled a few nuggets on how LeBron's first season back with the Cleveland Cavaliers has developed. In addition to mentioning that it's LeBron, not head coach David Blatt calling many of the Cavs' plays, Windhorst told a story about how LeBron had to quit on the team before they'd let him rest up.
“[Cavs GM] David Griffin tells the story. He said that LeBron had been moping for weeks," Windhorst said.
“It was LeBron’s birthday — it was December 30th. They were playing in Atlanta. It was before Atlanta went on their 20-game win streak, so it wasn’t really deemed a big game yet. And they thought LeBron was going to play, and LeBron just decided, ‘I’m not gonna play.’ Like, at the last minute, he told them, ‘I’m not playing.’ Didn’t even come out to the bench, just sat in the back, didn’t come out.”
This, of course, shocked the shit out of the Cavs, who were 18-12 going into that Hawks game (which they lost, duh).
“[James] had sort of just like waved a bit of a white flag there," Windhorst said. "He just didn’t feel like playing. He had never done that ever before. He had always just played through it. And so it was after that game, [the Cavaliers] said, ‘Alright, take your two weeks off,’ because he had reached a very low point.”
In those two weeks off, the Cavs went 1-7, but they also acquired center Timofey Mozgov, who's averaged 10.7 PPG, 7.8 RPG, and 1.2 BPG since joining the team. LeBron returned rested and re-energized after those two weeks, and the Cavs have gone 29-7 since. Windhorst's story is water under the bridge at this point, but it just furthers what we've all known about LeBron and the Cavs: He owns that team (and Windhorst).
Brian Windhorst gotta chill RT @Complex_Sports: LeBron James caught media members trying to take semi-nude photos of him in the locker room.
— You Don't Know Me (@AndyVsTheWorId) March 17, 2015Send all complaints, compliments, and tips to sportstips@complex.com.
[via SportressOfBlogitude]
