“We would not have gotten that (ping-pong) ball” if the Cavs didn’t win the last game of the 2002-03 season, and “Austin Carr was in tears … a lot of the management and front office had had parties that night … It was just remarkable,” said Gordon Gund.
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“I remember that night saying, ‘Man, it might be over for us (the Pistons),’” and, “I really do believe that that was the night that LeBron proved to himself that he could be the best player in the world,” said Chauncey Billups, about the night LeBron scored 25 consecutive points and 29 out of 30 to beat the Pistons in pivotal Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference finals.
A beautiful, crisp, sunny day in the Bay gave way to a soft rain that fell over San Francisco on the evening of June 3, 2016, matching the mood inside a hotel ballroom at the Four Seasons on Market Street.
The Cleveland Cavaliers were staying there for the first two games of the NBA Finals, and the previous night, a Thursday, they’d been beaten handily in Game 1 by the Golden State Warriors.
But the loss on the court wasn’t the reason for the melancholy mood around the table.
Muhammad Ali, the greatest to ever lace up boxing gloves, died that day. As clouds hovered over the bridges and a steady mist surrounded the street lamps along Market, every TV in every bar, restaurant and, yes, the Cavs’ team room at the Four Seasons was tuned to the wall-to-wall coverage of Ali’s passing.
A number of Cavs personnel, including Channing Frye, Richard Jefferson, Kevin Love, J.R. Smith and LeBron James, were seated together, engaging in a familiar activity from that season: sipping a vintage red.
“We’re sitting there with the Nike folks, our regular crew, having a glass of wine, and we had been there an hour or two — so, it’s like a couple of glasses,” Frye said. “Somebody whispered something in (James’) ear, and he was like, ‘All right, y’all, see you,’ goes up, changes his clothes and goes and works out for like two hours.”
On a Friday night? With practice scheduled for the next day and Game 2 of the Finals on Sunday? After several glasses of wine?
“I was like, ‘What the (expletive) is wrong with this dude?’” Frye said. “And they were like, ‘Muhammad Ali had such an influence on him.’
“To me, that’s what changed his attitude about the sense of urgency of what was happening at that moment,” Frye said.
What was happening during those 17 days in June, seven years ago, was James was preparing to lead the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history, which, for this discussion, is almost beside the point.