Some revisionist history on the Nets' effort to land LeBron James; they were out of the running even though they said the opposite

With the benefit of some hindsight, let's reconstruct the New Jersey Nets' ill-fated pursuit of superstar free agent LeBron James.

We've long known that, on 7/1/10, Nets' brass and owner Mikhail Prokhorov flew to Cleveland to meet with James.

Now we know, according to the New York Post's Fred Kerber, in an article headlined How Nets went LeBust come ‘Decision’ time, they didn't get very far:

“We never got any correspondence from LeBron’s camp after the first meeting,” [Nets official Bobby] Marks said. “When it was a three-, four-day stretch that we didn’t hear, we knew we were out.”

By the morning of July 6, the Nets heard the bad news through backchannels. One hour before James’ July 8 “The Decision” show, [agent Leon] Rose called [Nets GM Rod] Thorn and said the Nets were eliminated.

Looking back

But what were Kerber and others in the press reporting at the time?

Kerber reported July 7, in an article headlined Nets in LeBron holding pattern:

The Nets feel they remain in the LeBron running -- "We're still at the table," Thorn said.

That's just the way the game is played.