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The Sopranos gave LeBron James an offer he could refuse: playing for the Knicks.
While everyone still debates the ending of The Sopranos, we now know that the critically-acclaimed HBO series didn’t end with that sudden fade to black on June 10, 2007, but continued on with a special never-before-disclosed reunion episode three years later…all in the unsuccessful attempt to woo LeBron James to NYC to play hoops for the Knicks.
“I couldn’t believe that it didn’t work,” said Edie Falco. “Not so much because of The Sopranos. I just thought, it’s New York. How does anyone say no to New York, for God’s sake? But he did!”
Revealed yesterday in episode 4 of Chuck D’s new podcast, Shattered: Hope, Heartbreak and the New York Knicks, Falco and the late, great James Gandolfini reunited to portray Tony and Carmela Soprano one more time, as part of an all-star video intended to sway James into leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Big Apple.
Jonathan Hock, a frequent director of 30 For 30 ESPN documentaries, oversaw the 10-minute short, which also somehow managed to include Donald Trump, Robert De Niro, and suggestions from super Knicks fan Spike Lee.
“I do remember doing it and what is absolutely amazing to me is I didn’t know who LeBron James was,” Falco recalls now. “We got those requests all the time back then and Jim Gandolfini, he did nothing. And somehow he agreed to this thing, which I was shocked by. I thought it was a prank when someone said Jim’s going to do it.”
They shot their Sopranos reunion not in New Jersey at the Soprano household, but in Gandolfini’s New York apartment. The premise? Finding a place for James to live.
And in 2010, even the Sopranos couldn’t be counted on to root for the Nets, despite their New Jersey roots.
Because Gandolfini sported a full beard at the time, they wrote it into the script, explaining that in this fantasy ending, Tony hadn’t died in that diner, nor did he survive and thrive, but rather, had entered the witness protection program. “There he was dressed as Tony … he must have been a bigger basketball fan than I realized,” Falco recalled while filming their reunion.
Even though Gandolfini and James also crossed paths at the Spike Guys Choice Awards in June 2010, not even the Soprano family could convince “The King” to become a New Yorker. Instead, a few weeks later, LeBron announced “The Decision” to move to Miami live on ESPN.
Sadly, the 10-minute short featuring this secret Sopranos reunion has never been released publicly.
