{"id":846048,"date":"2026-09-28T18:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T18:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/846048\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T18:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T18:45:13","slug":"lebron-james-drops-a-reality-check-on-why-he-passed-on-playing-for-the-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/846048\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James drops a reality check on why he passed on playing for the Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a>\u2019 free agency ended with him signing a two-year deal to join the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However, it turns out that James once envisioned himself playing with the New York Knicks<\/a>, but their NBA Finals victory ended those dreams, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had visions of playing in [Madison Square] Garden and finishing my career in the Garden,\u201d James said during media day. \u201cOne of the best places I\u2019ve ever played. I think it\u2019s the No. 1 arena in the world, as far as for a basketball player. But after they beat San Antonio, I was like, \u2018Hey, I can\u2019t.\u2019 I couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

James left after eight seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>, and the five finalists were said to be the Miami Heat<\/a>, Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>, Golden State Warriors<\/a>, Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> and the 76ers. <\/p>\n

James\u2019 camp reportedly reached out to the Knicks during the process, but New York had no interest in signing him. <\/a>Now, James said that the Knicks winning the NBA title changed his mind on going there, although the thought of playing at Madison Square Garden was an intriguing one. <\/p>\n

James answered many questions during his media day with the 76ers, including one about whether or not the two-year contract will be his last in the NBA<\/a>. <\/p>\n

While James wanted to play at Madison Square Garden, the 76ers open the regular season at MSG<\/a> against the Knicks in James\u2019 first game as a member of the 76ers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James\u2019 free agency ended with him signing a two-year deal to join the Philadelphia 76ers. However, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,185,251,150,4033,4043,6,191],"class_list":["post-846048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-lakers","tag-basketball","tag-la","tag-la-lakers","tag-lakers","tag-lalakers","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleslakers","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117350152522118489","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}