Did LeBron James really leave the Miami Heat over a cookie?! If the story Dwyane Wade recently shared on the Underground Lounge podcast is true, it sure sounds like it. And if so, that would go down as an even bigger NBA food-shaming scandal than the one Nico Harrison is currently in for trading Luka Dončić over dietary concerns, according to a fresh story in the Athletic.
First, follow the trail of crumbs Dwyane Wade just left for us in his delectable interview.
Wade told the Underground Lounge crew that James loved having cookies on the team plane after games, and as he poetically put it, “One thing you don’t do is f— with LeBron’s cookies.”
Well, it seems notorious micromanager Pat Riley decided to put his hand in the cookie jar… and then dump it over.
One night, James — already deep into his Miami run of four straight NBA Finals appearances, including two championships — asked for his cookies and was informed they were no longer allowed on the plane.
James apparently then stepped away from the card game he was at and nodded knowingly. According to Dwyane Wade, “this was the first moment where I had an inkling that LeBron might not be back.”
In a similar vein, more details are leaking out from the Dallas Mavericks front office about what led to their mind-boggling decision to trade Luka Dončić, and his dietary habits seem to be at the center of it.
The Athletic reported on Wednesday that Dončić’s weight fluctuations, plus his “taste for beer and hookah,” have been “a point of concern for NBA types since he was a 19-year-old star for Real Madrid who was entering the draft.”
They went even further, suggesting that these habits might “predict his basketball demise, highlighting a health history that, as some see it, will likely lead to catastrophe in the next five years or so.”
Is food-shaming really at the heart of what led arguably the NBA’s two brightest stars to join forces on the Lakers?!
Shockingly, Nico Harrison’s concerns over what Luka Dončić puts in his body seem tame by comparison next to Riley’s alleged concerns about LeBron James’ diet.
Luka Dončić has at least had recorded issues with his weight management in the past, and concerns over alcohol and smoking are indeed more serious than junk food.
James, on the other hand, is legendary for the well-documented care he takes of his body. It’s what’s allowed him to play at such an elite level over 22 seasons and into his 40s.
LeBron wouldn’t dare mess with Pat Riley’s hair care products, so why on Earth wouldn’t Riley let his MVP eat cookies?!
And if Dončić’s diet was so problematic, wouldn’t it show up in his game? He led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals last year and appears to be hitting his stride as a Laker with ease.
There’s no question that there’s an obesity and food-related health crisis in this country… but LeBron James and Luka Dončić aren’t anywhere in the vicinity of the worst offenders on that list. One might even argue that we should save elite superstar pro athletes as the last subsection of society to food-shame (not the first).
Or at the very least, let these guys have a few cheat days here and there. Apparently Heat culture spares no one, even LeBron James. Ditto for Luka Dončić in Dallas. But I guess that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
The post LeBron James, Luka Dončić and food-shaming in the NBA appeared first on ClutchPoints.
