Will a Round of Golf Determine If LeBron Chooses Heat, 76ers, Cavs or Warriors???

Rich got aggregated twice in two days, and the second time it was for being wrong about a golf course.

The SportsCenter handle picked up his hour-one theory, which was that LeBron James playing golf with Draymond Green and Kevin Hart in California is basically a Warriors tell. The California part was doing all the work. LeBron lives here, Rich reasoned, and that was his shorthand for Golden State.

Then somebody pointed out the round was in New Jersey.

TJ needed about half a second. Where is New Jersey closest to? Philadelphia.

"Oh, hey now."

So the show leaned in, because if a golf foursome is now legitimate free agency intelligence, you have to read the whole foursome. Is Draymond spending eighteen holes telling LeBron to come play with us? Is Kevin Hart working the Philadelphia angle from the other cart? The moment Hart was confirmed on the course, TJ said, he knew it was good. And nothing stops any of them from putting Steph Curry on FaceTime and letting him make the Golden State pitch, assuming the wi-fi holds.

Rich has firsthand Curry intelligence, incidentally, because he recently invaded the man's fairway.

The full accounting took a while. Rich's shot came out of the right rough, sailed past his own fairway, crossed the cart path, and landed in the fairway Curry was playing. The photographic evidence, per Rich, clearly shows the cart path he had to walk up and the fairway to the left that he should have been standing on.

"I can't believe that dude," Rich said of Curry. "He just looks like he's ready to splash down at any point in time."

Because he is.

The exchange itself was brief. Curry, looking at the ball Rich had already smoked, said "wow, that's a hell of a shot." Rich asked for a picture. Curry was happy to oblige, and then Rich felt a twinge of guilt about it, since Curry was trying to win on Sunday and here comes a guy asking for a photo. He felt the same about John Smoltz, who came by and who Rich says is dead serious about the golf stuff.

"Listen, this is about LeBron playing golf," Rich said, eventually.

It is. And the actual reporting, as Rich noted, is that Shams has Eastern Conference teams with the leg up over the Timberwolves and the Warriors. Minnesota being in the mix at all was the detail that caught the desk's attention, mostly for the comedy of the personality blend.

So Rich put the real question on the table. If you are LeBron, and you are choosing between the Sixers, the Heat with Giannis and Bam already in the building, and the Cavs, where do you go to get the ring on the way out the door? Miami means familiar ground. He knows the area, knows Riley, knows Spo. Cleveland means going home.

Chris picked Cleveland, and the case is not sentimental. The Cavs made the Eastern Conference Finals last year and were on the doorstep, with a good series against the Knicks. Donovan Mitchell, James Harden and Evan Mobley are a real meshing of abilities. Rich added that Cleveland also won this year's analytics championship, and mentioned a Spurs assistant who has since moved on saying his team would have won that series in five if the games had been forty-six minutes long.

"Just go home, finish the story, and wrap it up in Cleveland," Chris said.

Rich would not go East. He said the Warriors, and he built it out. Steph, Draymond, Jimmy Butler if he comes back healthy, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, some of the young kids including Yaxel, and Steve Kerr on the sideline. You live up the coast in San Francisco. Money is not a factor, since it seems like LeBron is taking the minimum or something close to it.

"That's where I would go," Rich said.

TJ was not making a basketball argument. He was making a Dr. J argument. TJ has a love for Dr. J, having met his sports idol for the second time recently, something the show touched on briefly on Monday. LeBron, he pointed out, has that same love. So why not come to the place where Dr. J played and add a championship to the one Dr. J already brought there?

"This is just me openly praying," TJ admitted.

Fair enough. Everyone else is reading tee times.