Gilbert Arenas claimed on his podcast that LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade wanted to sign with the New York Knicks.
In the latest episode of his podcast, NBA veteran point guard Gilbert Arenas revealed the original location for the planned team-up between LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and 11x All-Star Chris Bosh. According to Arenas, they were originally supposed to sign with the Knicks before they agreed to play for the Miami Heat.
“When Dwyane Wade, Bosh and LeBron decided to team up, they was not playing in someone city so they can all be fresh. So they were planning on going to New York together. And what happened is because they didn’t tell anyone, Dolan made a mistake by paying Amar’e Stoudemire.”
“They didn’t want to play with Amar’e Stoudemire because they had they own Big 3. So, because New York f—– it up, they called Micky Arison and say, ‘Hey, Micky. This is what we wanna do. Can you make it happen?’
And then made it work — if you knew what was going on then, you would have known New York dropped the ball because of they offered Mike Miller all that money because they knew Mike Miller was part of the group. Miami stole him. [Udonis] Haslem rejected his deal once he got wind, took the pay cut, signed last to come back. They were all moving together.”
Apparently, the trio had different plans that summer. Originally, they were supposed to join forces on the New York Knicks, one of the league’s most popular and world-renowned franchises. At the time, they strongly believed that they could lure LeBron and it would have begun an era of prosperity for the entire organization.
According to Arenas, the trade for 6x All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire in that same summer destroyed their chances of making the dream a reality. By taking on his five-year, $99.7 million contract the Knicks limited their cap space and they only had enough to sign two of the big three.