The recruitment of LeBron James has begun and it is as much of a circus as expected. Nets' contingent, incuding rapper and part owner Jay-Z, is meeting with James Thursday morning in a downtown Cleveland office.
View full sizeNew Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, left, and new coach Avery Johnson, pictured during an NBA Finals game, lead a contingent of team executives meeting with LeBron James on Thursday morning in downtown Cleveland.CLEVELAND, Ohio - The recruitment of LeBron James has begun and it is as much of a circus as expected.
The New Jersey Nets were the first to meet with James on the first day of free agency, arriving at the downtown Cleveland offices of his LRMR Marketing company shortly after 11 a.m. on Thursday morning.
James arrived a few minutes before 11 a.m. in a white Cadillac and headed up to his offices. He declined to comment to The Plain Dealer on arrival.
New Nets owner and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov and his contingent arrived a few minutes later. Prokhorov confidently strode to the elevators leading a contingent with rapper and part owner Jay-Z, team president Rod Thorn and new coach Avery Johnson.
There were several other men in suits in the party and they brought with them luggage and computer equipment for a presentation planned for James. The Nets have nearly $30 million in salary-cap room, enough to add James and other free agents to a team that won just 12 games last season.
Prokhorov, who flew to New York from France to prepare for the meeting on Wednesday, picked up the Nets officials and flew to Cleveland on Thursday morning. His Gulfstream V jet landed at Cleveland Hopkins airport shortly after 10:30 a.m. Prokhorov is expected to return to Russia later Thursday.
The Nets meeting, which was scheduled to last about two hours, is just one of two on James' first day of receiving free-agent pitches. The New York Knicks are scheduled to meet with James after 1 p.m.
The Knicks crew arrived at about 7:45 a.m. on Thursday morning in a Gulfstream IV jet from Los Angeles, where they met with free agents Joe Johnson and Mike Miller on Wednesday night. The team consists of team owner James Dolan, coach Mike D'Antoni, former star and current executive Allan Houston and president Donnie Walsh.
James, according to a source, is expected to host the Miami Heat on Friday morning, followed by a presentation by the Los Angeles Clippers. The Chicago Bulls are believed to be scheduled to pitch James on Saturday.
Then, potentially as the last team to present, the Cavs are expected to meet with James. New coach Byron Scott, who reached an agreement with the Cavs on a four-year contract early Thursday, is expected to be part of that meeting.
As the parties arrived at the office building, they were greeted by a large banner on a hotel across the street that read "HOME" along with a Cavs logo. It is part of a marketing campaign throughout the city with various banners and billboards targeting James and playing to his sense of home and community.
Numerous Cavs employees held up signs of the same nature outside the building and waved them to passing cars, who were honking horns.