Cookie Monster LeBron opens up about Pat the Grouch and Heat (chocolate) chip still on his shoulder

Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Mar 27, 2025

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MIAMI — The curious Miami Heat case of Cookie Monster vs. the Grouch continues to play out years after the fact, with Pat Riley cast in the role of Oscar and LeBron James as Cookie Monster.

What started as a benign reflection by former Heat guard Dwyane Wade about the steps Riley, in his role as Heat president, has taken to maintain his touchstone core values, has turned into decade-later pushback this week from no less than LeBron.

A month ago, during an appearance on “The Underground Lounge” podcast hosted by former NBA player Lou Williams, Wade spoke of the time during the Heat Big Three championship era when James’ prized chocolate-chip cookies suddenly vanished from team flights.

Wade began by saying the last thing anyone should be doing is messing with James’ preferred snack of choice.

“No, no, no, this is serious,” Wade said on the podcast. “He loves chocolate-chip cookies. Chocolate-chip cookies and ice cream, he loves. LeBron walks on the plane with a bag of food. One bag is all cookies, and the other bags are what his chef has prepared for him to eat.”

At the time, the Heat also were furnishing the cookies as a travel staple. Then, with the Heat moving toward a more healthful menu, with a full-time nutritionist now in place, the cookies were gone.

This week, appearing on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show,” James took it from there.

“They would bring me two cookies, and I would get to gambling with the guys, and I got my cookies and we’re good,” James said. “And then one flight, I got on and I looked at them and they looked at me. And I’m like, ‘Oh that look didn’t look familiar.’ And I asked, like, ‘Do you have the cookies?’ They were like, ‘No, no more cookies on these flights.’

“And we all knew where it came from. I looked at D-Wade and D-Wade looked at me, and he was like basically without even saying it, he was like ...”

James followed with an expletive, before recalling saying to Wade, “Riles has done it again. Riles strikes again.”

While there was initial tension between James and Riley when James left the Heat in the 2014 offseason after four consecutive trips to the NBA Finals and 2012 and ’13 Heat championship, the two largely have reconciled, with the expectation of James’ Heat No. 6 eventually hanging in the rafters at Kaseya Center.

During the McAfee appearance, James also reflected on his initial move to the Heat in 2010 free agency and his ensuing four years in the team’s colors being his version of the college experience he bypassed.

“I was 25 years old. I played for Cleveland, but I still lived in Akron. So for 25 straight years, I was in the same house. I had an awesome house – you’ve seen that. That’s a great house. So I was comfortable. That was my comfort. My comfortability was being in Akron, Ohio. I’d drive 30 minutes to Cleveland, play my games, then shoot right back down to Akron, and I was good,” James said.

“So for the first time, it’s like — I’ve always used the analogy — it felt like my college moment. I didn’t go to college, so going to Miami was like moving out of my parents’ house. I was going off to college.”

James also spoke about how Riley’s commitment and insistence on the Heat’s culture polluted the situation that led to the team’s trade of Jimmy Butler last month to the Golden State Warriors.

“If it ain’t about that Heat shield and covering that Heat culture, I mean we see with what’s going on now,” James said of Riley’s commitment to the Heat logo and culture above all.