The NBA isn’t stupid — they don’t schedule any games directly up against the Super Bowl.
But it’s close enough this year that LeBron James and his Miami Heat teammates are not going to get to see the San Francisco 49ers make Ray Lewis cry and beat the Baltimore Ravens. (Well, Ray will cry either way.) Ira Winderman had LeBron’s reaction at the Sun Sentinel.“How disgusting is that?” he said after Wednesday’s shootaround at the Barclays Center prior to the game against the Brooklyn Nets….
“If the Cowboys were in the Super Bowl, I’d stay there for the game,” he said of his passionate football rooting interest.
Miami tips off against Toronto at 2 p.m. Eastern and for viewers at home that works out pretty well because after the final buzzer you can flip over and catch the last hour and a half of pregame then watch the big game.
But for James and teammates there is the post-game routine of showers and media obligations, followed by a bus to the airport and a flight home to Miami — a flight that can’t be delayed to watch the game because the Heat have a game the next night at home. Staying and watching the Super Bowl then flying would leave a very tired team the next day.
While the Heat do fly a charter plane (like all NBA teams), their current one doesn’t have the modern conveniences of satellite television of wi-fi on board, Winderman reports. So they will be without the game and updates (save what the pilot can pass along).
It’s a sacrifice for work, and life is not hard for these guys, but if your job made you sacrifice the Super Bowl you’d be pissed, too.
