What really happened to Tony at the end of The Sopranos? Well, in some universe, he enters the Witness Protection Program and tried to recruit LeBron James to play for the New York Knicks. Three years after the classic HBO series came to an end, James Gandolfini and Edie Falco reprised their roles of Tony and Carmela Soprano in a previously unseen video from the Knicks made to recruit LeBron to the team. The clip was unearthed by the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast and shown online on Tuesday, April 16.
The video picks up two years after The Sopranos finale, and it starts with a title card that reads “Two years later (Somewhere in New York).” Edie’s voice can then be heard as they’re seen on screen. “Tony, I’m so glad we moved to New York. Life is so much better now,” she says. Carmela is seen leaning in at a laptop on a kitchen counter as she talks to Tony.
EXCLUSIVE: We found the secret tape the Knicks made to recruit LeBron.
It’s a Sopranos reunion … and so much more.
Watch our reveal with @PabloTorre, @netw3rk and @WorldWideWob: https://t.co/DJ9erPKdji pic.twitter.com/W0QCYMV8en
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) April 16, 2024
Tony is sitting on a couch reading The New York Post, and he then lowers the paper, showing James with a full-grown beard. “Life’s good here, Carm. Even if we are in the Witness Protection Program,” he says as he smiles. Carmela then mentions that they need to “find a place for your friend LeBron to live,” before asking Tony about the NBA star. “He’s a modern guy, but he respects tradition,” he says. “He’s gonna be entertaining a lot of people in New York.”
Tony then tells her that she needs to find him a great place to live. “You’ve gotta find something magnificent, something there’s nothing in the world like it, one-of-a-kind, like he is,” he says, before Carmela shows him a video of the Knicks playing at Madison Square Garden, and Tony agrees that it would be great for LeBron. Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement” then plays as a screen with the words “City of Winners” in the Knicks’ font and color scheme is shown.
Other than The Sopranos clip, there are many more clips of other New York-based celebrities throughout the video, although some of them have not aged very well including Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Harvey Weinstein. Other celebs include Chris Rock, Robert De Niro, and Spike Lee, per Consequence.
The video was seemingly made after LeBron became an unrestricted free agent in July 2010 after his first few seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Despite the Knicks’ efforts, he went to Miami for the 2010 season, where he stayed through 2014. Gandolfini died of a heart attack in 2013.
