NBA free agency is getting absurd. Perhaps it’s our infatuation with the 24-hour news cycle, or the indolence that can set in over the Fourth of July Weekend after all the fireworks have been set off and the hot dogs are in our bellies, but people were tracking Cleveland owner, Dan Gilbert, and his personal plane this weekend in an attempt to lock down whether he was meeting with LeBron James in Miami.
With a big tip of the hat to SB Nation’s Seth Rosenthal and CBS Sports’ Matt Moore, comes the following sequence of events:
Cleveland’s radio personality, Joe Lull, of 92.3 The Fan, sent out this tweet on Sunday:
Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert is currently en route to south Florida.
— Joe Lull (@LullOnSports) July 6, 2014
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Gilbert responded, denying the assertion:
“. @LullOnSports:Cavs owner Dan Gilbert is currently en route to south Florida.” I am? Sorry folks but enjoying weather in my backyard today
— Dan Gilbert (@cavsdan) July 6, 2014
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Except, the plane appears to be his, and the flight’s history appears to lock up with the max extension Kyrie Irving signed in New Jersey, and a trek to Indy the same day the Cavs met with restricted free agent Gordon Hayward in his home state.
And the plane is registered to SLAN LLC. Its address?
1074 Woodward Ave in Detroit. Same as Rock Ventures. https://t.co/O5trAdC9q0
— Ben Axelrod (@BenAxelrod) July 6, 2014
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Can’t argue w/ flight history. Indy on same day Hayward met with #Cavs & NJ around time Irving signed his extension. https://t.co/n5Qi5lKm5X
— Brendan Leister (@BrendanLeister) July 6, 2014
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Then again, Lull backed off his earlier tweet a bit later:
Should've clarified earlier. Dan's plane was scheduled to take off for South Florida at 2pm. Could be sending it down for someone.
— Joe Lull (@LullOnSports) July 6, 2014
Today, we found out James is intrigued by the prospect of signing with the Cavs, but ESPN’s Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst let us know the Cavs pitched James’ agent last week, and hope to have a face-to-face with him this week:
Sources say that the Cavs’ pitch made to Paul last week — which they also hope to make this week to James in their own face-to-face meeting — revolves around Kyrie Irving and the other young prospects they have, in addition to the numerous options Cleveland possesses to add to the roster over the next year.
Gilbert likely was in his backyard at the time Twitter turned into Sherlock Holmes, but the Internet’s hivemind almost convinced us otherwise. Who knows, though, maybe they already had secret negotiations. We don’t know who to believe anymore, so we might just live-tweet a fake Woj account so all our readers are as in the dark as most the media:
What do you think?
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