CLE beefed with Carlos Boozer and fans egged his house

SB Nation

Carlos Boozer had the opportunity to be LeBron James' co-star, to potentially bring glory and titles and celebratory revelling to the streets of Cleveland. But instead he brought spiteful revelling to Cleveland -- which, turns out, they city was really good at.  When Carlos Boozer allegedly went back on his word in 2004, screwing over a Cavaliers team that had tried to increase his salary, the fans showed no mercy. Eggs were thrown. Forbidden words were thrown. And carlosloozer.com received tens of thousands of hits every month.  Enjoy your beef.   Written and produced by Clara Morris Directed and edited by: Jeremy Ray Smolik  Subscribe: http://goo.gl/Nbabae Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/secretbase Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretbase.bsky.social Follow us on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@secretbasesbn? Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/9pMHRV Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/NvpZFF Explore SB Nation: http://www.sbnation.com

Transcript

00:00This is Carlos Boozer. This is a sampling of Cleveland Cavalier fans.

00:06These two parties got along great for two years. What about the rest of time?

00:13Well, tell your cardiologist to beat it. We're eating beef.

00:18By the by, I wanted to let you know we have a Patreon that has new stuff every week.

00:23Some experimental, some tried and true, some in between. All very fun, in my personal opinion.

00:30Now, where were we?

00:33Carlos Boozer had a wonderful experience at Duke, declared for the draft as a junior, and expected to go in the middle of the first round.

00:40But instead, the undersized big man spent the night sweating and making a list of whom to get revenge upon.

00:47As one does when humiliated.

00:49Boozer was eventually chosen in the second round, 35th overall, by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

00:55And thanks to being drafted by a team that was hoping to soon be up and coming, the second round rookie got the opportunity for revenge.

01:04Which he seized.

01:06And squeezed even tighter his sophomore season.

01:09Alongside a promising young rookie, Boozer blossomed into the league's fifth best rebounder and a double-double machine.

01:16I'll stop playing coy. It was LeBron. The rookie was LeBron James.

01:20And he and Boozer seemed like a match made in Heaven University's science department.

01:27The fans loved Boozer as much as they reasonably could.

01:31He was polite to stadium staff and media members, and played with a toughness that made the city proud.

01:37People envisioned multiple championships for the Burgundy and Gold, with LeBron as the Michael Jordan, and Boozer as the Dennis Rodman slash Horace Grant.

01:47He was almost as important to Cleveland's bright future as LeBron himself.

01:52But he wasn't paid like it.

01:55He was stuck in his second round of the draft level contract.

01:58There was an option to let him out of his contract, however.

02:02And after his breakout 04 season, Boozer and his agent asked Cleveland for a meeting to discuss the whole grossly underpaid, rising star-who-everyone-likes situation.

02:12Management granted him a meeting.

02:15Let's set the stage.

02:17The meeting took place on June 30th, 2004.

02:20The timing was delicate.

02:21According to collective bargaining agreement rules, the Cavs had to decide what to do with Boozer's contract before midnight.

02:28But they could not make a new verbal deal until after midnight.

02:33They also could not sign anything until July 14th.

02:37In the room, on one side of the table, you had Boozer, his wife, and his agent.

02:42On the other side, you had GM Jim Paxson, owner Gordon Gund, and other Cavalier staff.

02:48This side of the table liked this side of the table.

02:51And vice versa.

02:53So, what did everyone want to get out of this meeting?

02:56This side wanted a long-term, fair contract as soon as possible.

03:01This side wanted Boozer to be with them for the long haul.

03:05Great.

03:05Seems like everyone's pretty aligned.

03:08Paxson laid out the options to get what everyone wanted.

03:11The team could let Carlos out of his contract and then sign him to a new contract for $40 million over six years.

03:18Sounds good.

03:19Let's do it.

03:20Hold on.

03:22$40 million over six years is still underpaying Boozer.

03:26It's just the most the Cavs could give him with the salary cap bearing down on them.

03:31And it gets trickier.

03:32If they let him out of his contract, he becomes a free agent.

03:36He doesn't have to sign with the Cavs again.

03:38He could sign with a team that doesn't have salary cap restrictions and could pay him more than $40 million.

03:44So the Cavs really had to trust that Boozer wanted to stay with them enough to give up tens of millions.

03:50I want to take a minute here and just collectively wonder why the Cavs would be interested in taking this risk.

03:57Why they were even volunteering to pay him more money than they had to for the 2005 season?

04:02Just to be nice and do their guy a solid?

04:07Wow.

04:07Oh, looks like the Cavs would actually be saving money in the long run if they did this.

04:13Hmm.

04:13So then the question was, could the Cavs trust Carlos Boozer wouldn't sign with another team for more money?

04:22And there were reasons to say yes.

04:24The Cavs were clearly a fit for Boozer.

04:27LeBron James was on the Cavs.

04:30Boozer had just gone house hunting in a wealthy area of Cleveland.

04:33His agent was in the meeting, which lends credibility.

04:37And here's a big one.

04:38In the meeting itself, a source later revealed Boozer said,

04:42If you respect me by not picking up the option, in other words, by letting him out of his contract,

04:48I'll show trust and loyalty to you by signing with you.

04:52So Paxson and Gunn grabbed each other's hands, nodded once, and took the leap.

04:58On July 1st, 2004, it was official.

05:01Boozer was a free agent.

05:03Boozer released a statement saying he wanted to stay in Cleveland

05:06and he was grateful to the team that took a chance on him in the draft and gave him minutes early on.

05:12So, it seemed like there wasn't going to be any drama.

05:16There were rumors other teams weren't even talking to Boozer because it was a waste of time.

05:20He wasn't moving.

05:21And if you can't trust a rumor, what can you trust?

05:26One day after those statements of loyalty, Boozer disconnected a phone he had been using to communicate with Cavs management.

05:32The next day, Boozer reportedly told people there was no deal with the Cavs in place.

05:40Over the July 4th weekend, big men not as good as Boozer got contracts that were better than $40 million over six years.

05:48July 5th, Boozer told Paxson he was going to test the market.

05:52Three days after that, Boozer accepted an offer of $68 million from the Jazz.

05:58And just like that, the Cavs lost Carlos Boozer.

06:02And possibly their future?

06:05Everyone took heat from every angle.

06:08Boozer was a greedy backstabber who deserved...

06:11Well, comments ranged in intensity.

06:14Cavs management was a bunch of morons.

06:16Boozer's agent also felt fans' wrath.

06:19The intense kind.

06:21Not loving the backlash, Boozer's agency dropped him and his agent resigned.

06:27So, wait, did the fans have beef with Boozer or the front office or the agent or everybody?

06:34That will be cleared up shortly.

06:36Because on July 13th, Boozer told his side of the story.

06:40He said he was surprised and confused when the Cavs let him out of his contract.

06:48He insisted there was no deal because that would have been against the rules.

06:53The Cavaliers must have gotten mixed up.

06:56Saying he wants to be in Cleveland doesn't mean he's going to do what he wants.

07:01He also claimed that over the July 4th weekend, the Cavs told him he'd never be an all-star with them.

07:06He'd always be a role player, because that's how you talk to a player you're actively trying to convince to sign with you for below market value.

07:16Nobody bought what Boozer was saying.

07:18In fact, his defense produced a, he thinks we're stupid, response from fans.

07:24The same day Boozer's side of the story hit the press,

07:27Gund, the Cavs' owner, known as a benevolent man who was also blind, wrote a letter to fans.

07:34In it, he took full responsibility.

07:36He trusted Boozer, and the team lost out.

07:40Very different approaches to criticism.

07:42Defensive versus owning up.

07:44Owning up won.

07:46The narrative became, Boozer deceived a blind man.

07:51And the city of Cleveland unleashed beef upon Carlos Boozer and his family.

07:56They didn't literally throw beef.

07:59They opted for tomatoes and eggs.

08:01The Boozers had suspicions FedEx was purposely not delivering their packages.

08:06His wife was pulled over for basically no reason, other than her license plates reading, see booze.

08:14And it's probably a good rule of thumb that if your name rhymes with an insult, you should avoid angering an entire region of the country.

08:21Two Cleveland designers made the website carlosloser.com.

08:26It got about 20,000 to 30,000 hits a month.

08:30And answered the age-old question, can beef be art, with a resounding yes.

08:35The website creators attempted to laugh through their pain with drawings, like this one where Boozer is buddying up to Benedict Arnold.

08:41And this one where he's gobbling up money like a fat, fat turkey.

08:47There was an overall summary of the Boozer saga, presented as an animated Star Wars parody, in which Boozer was Darth Vader.

08:54But a Darth Vader motivated by money instead of power, as you can see here, while he uses the force to rob Yoda.

09:02The effort involved in this site is impressive and staggering.

09:08And perhaps a window into how much pain the fans had to laugh through.

09:12Did Boozer ruin their team?

09:15Or maybe it was just fun to punch back when you're otherwise helpless.

09:19Probably a little of both.

09:21They sold t-shirts with their drawings, and I know this is Cleveland vs. Boozer,

09:25but it seems worth noting that t-shirt sales were international.

09:28The website also included a countdown until Boozer visited Cleveland again.

09:34The designers planned a Loserpalooza party at a nearby bar.

09:39But Boozer didn't show.

09:40To the game.

09:41Or Loserpalooza either, for that matter, though I don't know if he was invited.

09:45He was injured and didn't travel with the team.

09:49Fans booed him during the game anyway.

09:51After the game, Cavs coach Paul Silas was asked about Boozer's absence.

09:55His response wasn't immediately publicized, but an apology for his response was.

10:02He also called Boozer to apologize.

10:06And was fined 10K.

10:08Jeez, what'd he say?

10:10A radio show eventually revealed Silas referred to Boozer as a see-you-next...

10:15not Monday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or over the weekend.

10:20Look, I'm not gonna say it.

10:21I know everybody wants me to, but I'm not gonna say it.

10:24Due to more and more injuries, Boozer didn't come back to Cleveland until nearly three years later.

10:30Time had not eroded the beef.

10:33CarlosLoser.com, which was still running, called his return in 2007 the Day of Reckoning.

10:39The crowd booed and chanted until their voices gave out.

10:43They called his jersey a car rag.

10:45After the game, Boozer stuck to his story, insisting he never had to deal with the Cavs because it would have been illegal, convincing no one.

10:54The following season, he met a similar reception in the Forest City.

10:58Same with the season after that.

11:00This is five years removed from his leaving.

11:03Why is this beef so potent?

11:04Why doesn't time erode it?

11:07I mean, the relationship between Boozer and the Cavs started out so good, so maybe it just had far to fall?

11:14That makes sense.

11:16But there's more.

11:18This beef is lodged in the arteries of Cavs fans not just because Carlos Boozer betrayed them,

11:24not just because his defense was annoying and disingenuous,

11:28not just because Cleveland is good at holding a grudge,

11:31but because of the what-if factor.

11:34Boozer had been a great complement to LeBron.

11:37Then he blossomed into an all-star power forward with the Jazz.

11:41He was called one of the best 20 players in the league.

11:45What if this guy was beside LeBron?

11:48Would the Cavs have won a title or two?

11:51Would LeBron have taken his talents to South Beach?

11:54These questions keep the beef alive and well.

11:58Although, to be fair, Boozer playing badly also fed the beef.

12:03Boozer's career didn't continue on that all-star path,

12:07and Cleveland delighted in his struggles.

12:11They even rewrote history a bit, claiming they never liked him in the first place.

12:15There was no mention of him being polite to staff or being the second favorite or the Horace Grant.

12:21Instead, they said he was a stat chaser with the Cavs.

12:24Always putting himself first.

12:25Classic loser.

12:27It shouldn't be glossed over that the city of Cleveland is really good at holding a grudge.

12:33Nineteen years later, in 2023, Boozer said there was even more to his side of the story.

12:39He claimed that during free agency in 2004, the NBA called him and said that if he re-signed with the Cavs,

12:46they were going to investigate him for tampering and making an illegal deal.

12:51Cleveland fans were unmoved.

12:54The narrative of conning a blind man, of costing a city LeBron and multiple championships, is a tough one to come back from.

13:01There is nothing Carlos Boozer could do or say or reveal that would change the mind of the Cleveland fan base.

13:09As evidenced by the top comment on a Reddit post of Boozer's 2023 they would have called tampering article.

13:15The commenter says,

13:17Not even going to read the article.

13:19He done them wrong when they tried to do right by him.

13:23My opinion of him will never change.

13:25The captioner says,

13:33No, don't they?

13:42You

13:43You

13:44You

13:46You

13:51You

13:52You

13:53You

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