Mike Breen Doesn't Know Where LeBron Will Go Next Year, So He Made Fun of Imus For 10 Minutes

Like most sportscasters, particularly those in the basketball world, Mike Breen has no idea where LeBron James will wind up next year.

“Obviously, I’ve been right on top of the story,” said Breen, Imus’s former sports reporter and the current play-by-play announcer for the New York Knicks. “According to several of my sources, they’ve confirmed to me there are unconfirmed reports that he’ll confirm what he’s going to wear tonight by noon today.”

So-called “unconfirmed reports” have been swirling around James for days. Just last night, one source claimed he put an offer on a house in Coral Gables, Florida, meaning he’d chosen to play for the Miami Heat. And yet an altogether different source sighted James at the New York City restaurant Sparks, an indication he’d decided to play for the New York Knicks.

“There was another report that he’s going to host his own morning show on the RFD network,” Breen continued. “Now that’s believable, because they’ll hire anybody.”

All signs point to one of four NBA teams, and Breen offered unique foresight on just how James could satisfy fans in each city.

“He’s going to play for four different teams: 20 games with the Cavs, 20 games with the Knicks, 20 games with the Heat, another 20 with the Bulls,” said Breen. “And the last two he’s going to play in the WNBA.”

Tonight at 9 o’clock on ESPN, James, who has spent his entire career so far playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers and is now a free agent, will hold a one-hour special where he will announce his next destination, or that he’s decided to stay in Cleveland. All proceeds from advertising for the hour will benefit the Boys and Girls Club, and following the announcement, James will be interviewed by ESPN’s Jim Gray and Michael Wilbon.

“I have no harsh feelings that either one of them undeservedly received the honor,” said Breen, also the voice of the NBA playoffs on ESPN and ABC.

In all seriousness, Breen believes James, who is just 25 years old, is a very smart businessman. “He’s got the ability to say and do the right thing when it matters,” said Breen. And, as Imus pointed out, at least he’s not holding a press conference “apologizing for having sex with 15 women he wasn’t married to, or trying to explain away a car full of cocaine.”

Or, in Breen’s case, trying to explain why he picked the Johnny Rivers version of “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” as one of his five favorite songs, and not the original version by Huey “Piano” Smith and The Clowns.

“It has special meaning to me,” was all Breen would say.

But this wasn’t enough for Imus, who insisted that Rivers’s more successful recording of the song had resulted in Huey and the Clowns living inside an empty refrigerator crate somewhere in New Orleans.

To get his old boss to shut up, Breen finally divulged why the Johnny Rivers version was so close to his heart. “The day I heard Johnny Rivers’s version, that was the day your lung collapsed,” he told Imus. “And it meant an awful lot to me.”

-Julie Kanfer