Steve Gansey received a whole lot of brotherly love after LeBron James picked the Sixers
Gansey received the ultimate confirmation of the LeBron news from his brother, Mike, the Sixers’ president of basketball operations, about an hour after the decision broke.
Steve Gansey, brother of Mike Gansey, was at work on Friday morning when the texts started to trickle in.
Two colleagues from Philly shared the news that LeBron James had agreed to sign with the 76ers. The younger Gansey logged onto Twitter, and saw a post from ESPN insider Shams Charania saying the same.
Like any other responsible basketball fan, he checked to make sure it wasn’t a prank account, before getting too excited.
“I was like, ‘OK, well, who knows?’” Gansey said on Friday. “You’ve got to do your due diligence and make sure that’s real.”
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About an hour later, Steve received the ultimate confirmation from his brother, Mike, the Sixers’ president of basketball operations.
“Mike actually called me,” he said. “And was like, ‘What’s up?’ And I was like ‘….What’s up?’”
Steve said his brother barely talked about LeBron at all.
“We talked about how excited he is, this that and the other, and the first thing he said was, ’Yeah, it’s Nick Nurse’s birthday,’” Gansey said. “And Nick was boarding a plane or something, and Mike had to shoot him a text, and he said, ‘Happy Birthday,’ or something.”
He added: “Only a couple of hours after he gets the news with LeBron, Mike is talking about going to the flea market with his kids tomorrow in Cleveland. And how excited he is to find some old school starting lineups or action figures. That’s just who Mike is.”
The younger Gansey ignited Twitter a few weeks ago when he posted a photo of his brother, side-by-side, with LeBron, in high school. LeBron played basketball at St. Vincent-St. Mary, a short drive from Olmsted Falls, where Gansey played.
Steve says he didn’t have any inside knowledge when he posted that prophetic tweet, but that didn’t stop Sixers fans from showering him with praise on Friday afternoon, after the news became official.
“Everyone was like, ‘Thanks Steve for everything,’ like I did something,” Gansey said. “I gave people hope, I guess, by throwing out a couple of tweets there.”
Steve has never been to Philadelphia; the closest he got was a few trips to Delaware when he was coaching in the G-League. But he is excited to go. And when he does, he will have plenty of free food and alcohol awaiting him.
“Someone said that Mike can walk on the Sch-ku-yu? What is it? Water?” Gansey said, referring to the Schuylkill River. “I was like, ‘OK, that must be a tough body of water to walk on.’
“The free Tastykakes. ‘I have your hookup for free Tastykakes for Mike.’ Free cheesesteaks. ‘You get free beer, or a free drink, when you come into town.’”
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These are nice perks, but the younger brother is more proud of his brother than anything else — and unlike the rest of the NBA, he’s certainly not surprised.
“It comes around,” he said. “And that’s what relationships are. Obviously they have a good relationship together, they won a championship together, they feel comfortable. Nick Nurse won a championship. He’s a players first type of coach.
“It’s just really awesome that they are back together again. And it’s even cooler that they’re teaming up in a different city. Two northeast Ohio guys, takin’ on the world.”
