The Miami Heat are ready to feast like kings!
Heat players descended on the W Hotel in South Beach tonight, witnesses said, for a not-so-hush-hush team party, coinciding with LeBron James’ big announcement.
James himself has already booked 25 rooms at the W, in tell-tale sign that he’s about to call Miami his new basketball home, sources told The Post.
King James will tell the world tonight at 9 p.m. on ESPN who he’ll pick, in the most-hyped free-agent chase in NBA history.
Though the Knicks are clinging to a sliver of hope, they have heard through back channels that James likely is not headed to the Big Apple.
A source connected to James said, “You should be writing about the Heat,” and there are multiple reports saying James is likely to join Pat Riley’s Miami club. The Knicks also believe Cleveland is still in the running and ahead of them in the chase for James.
Yesterday, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh joined forces on South Beach, and Riley, the Heat president, is actively trying to woo James to form a “Dream Team.”
“It’s a really good team, we would take it, but it’s definitely not unbeatable,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said Thursday of the possibility of the three superstars playing together.
“They would set a high bar for the Eastern Conference.”
Season-ticket sales for the coming Heat season were suspended Thursday afternoon after the entire supply of available seats sold out, The Associated Press reported. (Not every seat has been released for sale and some will be held back for single-game purchases.)
The Knicks believe the location of his announcement — a Boys and Girls Club in Greenwich, Conn. — means nothing. Team president Donnie Walsh said that the teams James has decided to pass on will be alerted at the same time.
“At some point you want to hear something, so there’s anxiousness,” Walsh said at the press conference introducing Amar’e Stoudemire this afternoon.
“I did think New York was the perfect place for him. If he’s not here, I wish him luck.”
The Knicks were so desperate for information Wednesday, Walsh dispatched disgraced former team president Isiah Thomas to Akron to speak to one member of James’ inner-circle with whom he has a longstanding relationship.
D’Antoni will catch a flight today, but it will be to Las Vegas to join the Knicks’ summer league team.
“I am just going to Vegas; if he wants to come great,” D’Antoni said of James.
One sign James could be staying in Cleveland is he told organizers not to postpone his annual Kids Bike-a-thon in Akron on Aug. 7, which draws 3,000 Northeast Ohio children.
The Bulls boosted their lineup by signing Carlos Boozer yesterday, but they appear out of it, along with the Nets.
James’ preference was to stay in Cleveland, but after Bosh spurned a sign-and-trade to join him, he started to reconsider the Knicks and Heat. When it was learned yesterday afternoon that James will make the announcement in the Metro area, speculation reached new heights that he’s coming to the Knicks.
A source also believes the organizers didn’t realize Greenwich is so close to the Knicks facility.
Fourteen miles? So close, yet so far.
D’Antoni said he understands the Knicks are long shots, but sounded surprised by the way James is leaning.
“Considering the opportunity, I’d be shocked if he didn’t come here to be on the biggest stage in the world. Amar’e took that challenge,” D’Antoni said.
The Knicks remain mostly in the dark. Yesterday, team officials repeatedly called James manager Maverick Carter, but got no response. “It’s nuts, but it’s worth the wait,” one team source said.
Today, Stoudemire did not sound overly confident James would join him with the Knicks.
“I am not totally sure what LeBron is going to end up doing,” said Stoudemire, who spoke with James on the phone Tuesday night. “We’d love to have him here in New York, but we are not sure what he’s going to end up doing.”
With AP