Rich Paul’s comments on his Game Over podcast that the Lakers should trade Austin Reaves to the Grizzlies for Jaren Jackson Jr. has set off a firestorm among anyone who cares about the NBA. Analysts and fans alike have discussed the merits of such a trade, but more than that, they’ve honed in on how odd and destructive it is for LeBron James’ agent to advocate publicly for his teammate to be traded.
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Reaves’ agent confronted Paul at halftime of Tuesday night’s game against the Hawks, and LeBron had to answer questions about it in the locker room afterwards. All in all, this is the last thing the Lakers need as they fight to keep standing in the West.
Naturally, NBA analyst Skip Bayless has also shared his two cents on the matter, calling out LeBron for being as guilty as Paul himself.
“I was just lifting weights,” Skip hilariously humble-bragged, “and I finally said, ‘You know what, I just can’t let this slide. I gotta say this.’ Don’t let LeBron James get away with this one. Not this one. This was classic snakey, fakey, ‘Le-Con’ James,” Bayless said.
That is yet another passive aggressive lie from Le-Con James. A bunch of BS and lies came out of his mouth because he clearly had conspired with Rich Paul about this. pic.twitter.com/J3wZEwUSZW
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) January 15, 2026
Predictably, Skip isn’t buying LeBron’s line that, “Grown men can say whatever the f*** they want,” and he believes the Lakers star is the mastermind behind Paul putting the hypothetical Reaves trade out into the world.
“He clearly had conspired with Rich Paul about this,” Skip said as he flashed his weightlifting gloves. “Probably planted the original seed about this.”
LeBron is known to be a smart guy. Surely there are better ways to leak this kind of thing out with more than one degree of separation if he really wanted the Lakers to make this move.
Regardless, none of it seemed to matter to Bayless, who explained, “LeBron obviously is desperate to win one more championship so he can somehow validate his case that he is the GOAT, when he knows deep down, he’s nothing but phony GOAT — 4-6 in the Finals, a lousy 3-point shooter and a lousy free throw shooter, and often awful in the clutch, because he was born without a clutch gene.”
Love him or hate him, it’s going to be a sad day when LeBron retires because of how much he’s meant to the game for the past almost quarter-century. As far as Bayless is concerned, it is unlikely that LeBron is going to entertain this line of argument. But that never stopped Bayless for piling on either!
