Basketball Fan Sues LeBron After “Second Decision” Revealed as Hennessy Ad

Ryan J. Farrick — October 9, 2025

LeBron James playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014. Image via Wikimeida Commons/Flickr user: Keith Allison. (CCA-BY-2.0). (source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LeBron_James_%2815823062226%29.jpg).

After James came clean and dropped an advertisement for Hennessy, Garcia claims, the tickets lost almost of all their value. Now, Garcia argues that James should be liable for “fraud, deception, misrepresentation, and any and all basis of legal recovery.”

A California man has filed a lawsuit against LeBron James after the athlete and NBA superstar announced that he was on the cusp of making a “second decision,” a statement that many fans interpreted as a sign of his impending retirement—but instead turned out to be a pre-planned advertisement for Henessy.

According to FOX News, after James dropped a video-teaser hinting at a “second decision,” plaintiff Andrew Garcia purchased two tickets for a Los Angeles Lakers game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, spending about $432 per ticket on Ticketmaster.

After James came clean and dropped an advertisement for Hennessy, Garcia claims, the tickets lost almost of all their value. Now, Garcia argues that James should be liable for “fraud, deception, misrepresentation, and any and all basis of legal recovery.”

“I wouldn’t have purchased it if he wasn’t going to retire,” Garcia told TMZ.

Though the lawsuit may seem frivolous and filed in haste, Garcia, at the very least, wasn’t alone in his belief that James was planning to leave NBA. StubHub, another ticket retailer and reseller, said that, following James’s teaser video, ticket prices nearly doubled, going from $250 to $500 in a matter of hours. Furthermore, sales increased up to 20 times in the first hour after the announcement, with most customers purchasing tickets for the Lakers’ final home game of the season.

Basketball and Basketball net; image courtesy of Free-Photos via Pixabay, www.pixabay.com

James’s phrasing in the video is also somewhat suspect: he said that his impending announcement would be “the decision of all decisions,” fueling rumors that he was considering throwing in the towel and leaving professional basketball behind.

“I’m the kind of person that buys tickets five hours in advance,” Garcia said, claiming that his decision to spend hundreds was “solely, solely, solely” based on the implications of James’s “second decision” video.

FOX-Los Angeles notes that James’s “first” big decision came in 2010, when he publicly announced his plans to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for Miami.

On Tuesday, Jamess finally elaborated on his “second decision.”

“This fall,” James said, “I’m going to be taking my talents to Hennessy VSOP.”

Nevertheless, in statements made as recently as last month, James indicated that his career is likely to come to an end “sooner than later.”

“I’m excited about the opportunity to be able to play the game that I love for another season,” James said in an interview with FOX last month. “However the journey lays out this year, I’m super invested, because I don’t know when the end is. I know it’s a lot sooner than later.”