The Cavaliers season took a historically bad turn in 2018. But what if I told you it all began during a December trip to Napa Valley for a team-building wine competition?
A completely serious Cleveland Cavaliers wine tasting conspiracy theory
Kevin Love is still to blame.
Part one: LeBron James, wine connoisseur.
NBA players are obsessed with wine. That was the crux of a long ESPN piece written by Baxter Holmes on Tuesday.
While the piece was not primarily about the Cleveland Cavaliers, it did focus on LeBron James’ love for the vino. LeBron has been tweeting and Instagramming his affinity for wine a lot lately. It’s his new pastime, and his knowledge of wine is extensive.
In Holmes’ piece, Kevin Love described LeBron as having a “supercomputer in his brain” when it comes to wine.
Part two: The competition
The ESPN piece went on to describe a trip that the Cavaliers took to a winery in Napa in December.
December. As in, BEFORE the Cavaliers’ season took a sharp downhill turn. As in, BEFORE Love was called out by his teammates in a players-only meeting. As in, BEFORE the massive trade deadline moves that sent Isaiah Thomas and five other Cavs players away.
So what really went down during that fateful trip to Napa? According to ESPN, the Cavaliers participated in a team-building exercise involving wine:
In what amounts to a team-building exercise — a far cry from a contentious team meeting in their locker room 25 days later and a series of trade-deadline deals that would jettison six Cavaliers elsewhere — the Cavs are divvied up among the eight tables, and players are told to try the blend, then mix together portions of the three other wines to match the blend. They’re given no percentages; they must go only by taste. Using graduated glass cylinders, players begin to mix, jotting down the quantities.
We know that LeBron takes wine seriously and that he is a fiercely competitive person, so naturally he would have been everyone’s favorite to win the competition.
But he didn’t. Someone else did
“I got it, I got it!” Kevin Love shouts. And indeed he is close, very close, just a touch too rich, a percentage point too much of petit verdot.
Love won.
“Did they tell you?” Love will ask. “I was 1 percent from perfect!”
Not only did he win, but he was 1 percent from perfection. Perfection. The unattainable state that LeBron has been chasing his entire life.
Part three: The twist
If LeBron’s knowledge of wine is like a “supercomputer in his brain,” how did Love beat him at his own craft?
Many come close to nailing the exact formula. But when the results are examined, one player, who’d visited this winery months earlier, in late August, comes closest.
“... who’d visited this winery months earlier”
Love was placed at the scene of the competition just MONTHS before the now-infamous wine competition. Was Love privy to secret wine-mixing information? Did he have time to practice mixing the wines before the competition? Did he ... cheat?
Part four: The meeting
In late January, the Cavaliers’ notorious players-only meeting happened, during which Love’s “mystery illness” was called into question by the team.
But do we really know that the Cavaliers were mad at Love for missing a game? Or was LeBron secretly still upset at him for beating him in the Napa Valley wine competition?
It seems obvious that LeBron, one of the world’s fiercest competitors, would feel upset, inadequate, and enraged that his teammate could beat him at a game he knows best: wine tasting.
Part five: The fallout.
In an interview after a February loss, Channing Frye told a reporter that Love orders the best wine when they go out to dinner. Love, and not LeBron.
But Frye then went on to critique Love’s taste, perhaps to backtrack in case LeBron catches wind of the interview. Via Holmes’ feature:
“Probably Kevin,” Frye says after a beat, and Love, who’s sitting to Frye’s right, his feet soaking in an ice bucket after logging 30 minutes against the Kings, appreciates the mention. Love hails from Oregon, prides himself on not easing into wine on a sweet white but instead his home state’s famed reds.
”He has the simplest taste,” Frye continues, “but he also ... “
”Simplest taste?!” Love interrupts, his eyes wide, eyebrows raised, head perched forward.
”I mean easiest taste,” Frye says. “Shut up.”
”Simplest taste?” Love repeats.
Eventually, Frye conceded that Love’s taste in wine was “reliable,” but not before saying, “F—- you, Kevin.”
Frye was traded a week later.
So here is what we know.
- LeBron loves wine. He prides himself on his knowledge of wine.
- Love beat LeBron at his own game. He won the Napa wine competition.
- Love was mysteriously placed at the very same Napa winery months before the competition.
- Love’s taste in wine was described as simply “reliable,” while LeBron is known for his extensive knowledge of wine.
- At a players-only meeting in January, Cavaliers teammates — including, presumably, James — specifically called out Love for being a bad teammate.
- The Cavaliers overhauled their entire team a couple of weeks later. The list of departed players includes Frye, who was on record complimenting Love on his taste in wine.
THE CONCLUSION.
Is wine to blame for all of the Cavaliers problems in 2018? Is there any way, after reading all of this, that you could think there is any other possible reason?
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