Cookie-gate lives on for LeBron James and Heat. Also, Erik Spoelstra's Jimmy Butler reflections
It all started when Miami Heat icon Dwyane Wade went on Lou Williams' 'The Underground Lounge' podcast and shared a story from James' time with the Heat. Wade joked 'the first moment when I had inkling that LeBron might not be back' came when the Heat banned James' beloved chocolate chip cookies from the team plane.
'One thing you don't do is [expletive] with LeBron's cookies,' Wade said during a recent appearance on the show. 'No, no, no, this is serious. He loves chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies and ice cream, he loves. LeBron walks on the plane with a bag of food. One bag is all cookies and the other bags are what his chef has prepared for him to eat.'
James confirmed the story during his extended appearance on 'The Pat McAfee Show' this week.
'It's a true story,' James, 40, said on the show. 'Now, it wasn't like [Heat president Pat Riley] was on the plane and I was about to get my cookies and Riles snatched them out my hand. You know how stories can kind of build to Sasquatch at some point. But there was a time, everybody knows I love chocolate chip cookies. It's like my biggest vice. It was literally the plane that we were getting on, the ladies on the plane were making chocolate chip cookies. So they were making them and bringing them because we had the same ladies all the time.
'They would bring me two cookies and I would get to gambling with the guys, and I got my cookies and we're good. And then one flight, I got on and I looked at them and they looked at me. And I'm like, oh that look didn't look familiar. And I asked like, 'Do you have the cookies?' They were like, 'No, no more cookies on these flights.' And we all knew where it came from. I looked at D-Wade and D-Wade looked at me, and he was like basically without even saying it, he was like: '[Expletive] Riles has done it again. Riles strikes again.' I was like, 'Damn.''
Cookies were taken off the Heat's team flight in the middle of the Big 3 era, according to a source, but Riley was not directly responsible for their removal. In fact, cookies returned to the Heat's plane shortly after and are still available on team flights to this day.
James spent four seasons with the Heat from 2010 to 2014, winning two NBA championships with the organization in 2012 and 2013 in four NBA Finals appearances. He also was selected as the NBA's Most Valuable Player two times while with the Heat.
James left the Heat as a free agent in 2014 to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers — the team he left to join the Heat in 2010. He has since joined the Los Angeles Lakers and is in his 22nd NBA season.
'One thing about Riles, he don't give a [expletive] about nothing,' James said on 'The Pat McAfee Show.' 'Listen, if it ain't about that Heat shield and covering that Heat culture, he don't.'
JIMMY MEMORIES
Jimmy Butler and the Golden State Warriors finally left South Florida on Thursday after their long stay in Miami.
Before the Heat routed the Warriors in Butler's return to Kaseya Center on Tuesday, Spoelstra reflected on Butler's five-plus seasons with the Heat.
The ending was ugly, as Butler feuded with the Heat ahead of being traded to the Warriors in early February. But Spoelstra will remember the good times he shared with Butler.
'When we get past all of this, I said this the other night, this league is a league of change,' Spoelstra said, with the Heat closing its five-game homestand on Thursday night against the Atlanta Hawks. 'It's a league of emotion. When you get past it, years beyond, you'll look back at this chapter. That's what it was, it was a 5.5-year chapter. That's equivalent to when Pat was coaching with the Lakers probably to like a 10-year chapter. It's a transient league now. So that was a pretty long chapter.
'There were a lot of different highs and lows with that. But yeah, I'll look back at it fondly. I will. I have a picture of he and I from the bubble that I don't know who took it, we didn't know they took it. I'll definitely look back on that, those were extraordinary times and those are memories that we'll all keep.'
INJURY REPORT
The Heat listed Alec Burks (lower back discomfort) and Duncan Robinson (lower back pain) as questionable for Thursday's matchup against the Hawks.
The Heat remains without Josh Christopher (G League), Keshad Johnson (G League), Nikola Jovic (broken right hand), Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery) and Isaiah Stevens (G League).
Hawks star guard Trae Young (right Achilles tendinitis) is probable to play against the Heat.
The Hawks ruled out Kobe Bufkin (right shoulder surgery), Clint Capela (left fourth metacarpal ligament sprain), Jalen Johnson (left shoulder surgery), Larry Nance Jr. (right medial femoral condyle fracture), Daeqwon Plowden (G League), Jacob Toppin (G League) and Keaton Wallace (right shoulder AC sprain).
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