The year is 2010. The Sopranos has been off the air for more than two years. LeBron James is approaching one of the biggest free agent decisions in NBA history. Somehow, these two things are intertwined.
We know this because Pablo Torre, ESPN scribe and host of Pablo Torre Finds Out, found the pitch video Sopranos stars Edie Falco and James Gandolfini made in the New York Knicks’ futile effort to land James. It is both surprising and awful, an effort that makes everything, from a storied NBA franchise to an all-time great basketball player to one of the greatest television shows ever made, a little dumber from being associated with it.
The video opens with The Sopranos’ iconic logo and a title card suggesting it’s two years after the show’s (initially divisive and currently appreciated) finale. Some extremely clunky dialogue informs us that Tony and Carmela have joined witness protection. The FBI has wisely placed them in New York City, where the mafia has never operated and this high profile informant could in no way be recognized.
Well, fine, whatever, David Chase didn’t write this. And that’s wildly obvious from the script basketball conjunctivitus/nepo baby/barely formed human/Knicks owner James Dolan possibly penned but definitely signed off on.
EXCLUSIVE: We found the secret tape the Knicks made to recruit LeBron.
It's a Sopranos reunion … and so much more.
Watch our reveal with @PabloTorre, @netw3rk and @WorldWideWob: https://t.co/DJ9erPKdji pic.twitter.com/W0QCYMV8en
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) April 16, 2024
“Life’s good here, Carm,” Gandolfini says while smiling directly into the camera. “Even if we are in the witness protection program.”
“Now we’ve just gotta find a place for your friend LeBron to live,” replies Carmela, positing a world where the New Jersey gangster who once had a panic attack when he found out his daughter was dating a mixed-race classmate and the world’s most famous basketball player are friends. She eventually pulls up a stock photo of Madison Square Garden on her Macbook as Gandolfini and Falco mug for the camera. Despite being two of the most New Jersey people in the world, they’re now fully invested in the neighboring state with which they once warred because these characters are merely props in a billionaire bidding war and everything is terrible.
Thus, two Jersey icons sell themselves out in the name of New York basketball. Like most things Knicks, this was a high profile failure. James picked the Miami Heat in a televised special nearly as awkward as the video above.