Shams Charania Reveals LeBron James' Secret Meeting With Cavs Before Joining 76ers

LeBron James' free agency saga is finally over after he decided to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers. Despite no longer being on the market, though, people are still talking about the rather long period before he made a decision.

In fact, this chapter of James' career was once again revisited on the latest episode of Game Over. Renowned NBA insider Shams Charania recently joined the podcast hosted by Max Kellerman, where one of the central topics was the 41-year-old star's summer.

Specifically, they ended up discussing one of the teams considered a frontrunner for James, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

It's hard to gauge how close the Cavs actually got to signing James to a contract. However, it looks like they threw nearly everything but the kitchen sink in their efforts to acquire him.

Earlier this month, their entire ownership group even met him in an effort to sign him, as shared by Charania.

"Now you tell me Rich, if I'm right or wrong," Charania said, addressing James' agent directly. "Is it the Cavs front office group, Koby Altman, Brandon Weems, the Gilbert Family."

Charania paused after naming these significant members of the Cavs organization, prompting Paul to ask what he meant.

"Meeting with LeBron in Akron in early July," the ESPN Insider replied.

This seemed to catch Paul off guard, so he asked Charania how he knew about that particular meeting.

Charania, in response, simply refused to divulge the specifics on how he learned of that meeting. He did, however, state that he had received that information from multiple people off the record, so he opted not to file an official report.

Whether that meeting was revealed to the public or not, though, it likely wouldn't have changed the fact that a few teams kept being discussed as potential landing spots for him this summer.

Rich Paul Clarifies the Reports About Him Thinking LeBron James Was Headed to the Heat

There were four teams considered frontrunners to acquire LeBron James before he eventually signed: the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat, Golden State Warriors, and Philadelphia 76ers.

Those four teams would alternate almost daily in the rumor mill as potential top landing spots.

During the most recent episode of Game Over, Max Kellerman read an email directed to Rich Paul about one of these teams, the Miami Heat.

The email asked Paul about ESPN's Ramona Shelburne's report, which claimed she spoke with him after James chose the Sixers. In that conversation, Paul himself supposedly thought his client would sign with the Heat instead.

Finally, this question allowed Paul to clear the air.

According to him, what he really meant was that it seemed like the favorite to land his client was changing daily. Of course, that meant the Heat would sometimes be viewed as the team leading the race to acquire James.

Kellerman then pivoted to Shams Charania, asking whether he thought the Heat were in the lead to acquire James at any point.

The ESPN Insider replied that he had never heard from a credible source that this was ever the case.

Like the Cleveland Cavaliers, it's impossible to quantify just how close the Heat came to signing James. At this point, though, trying to gauge that is completely moot because he's already made his choice.