LeBron James has normalized playing this great at an advanced age, so the story in the aftermath of the win wasn’t his stat line or his continued excellence. It was LeBron’s agent Rich Paul and the fact that he recently said on his podcast that the Lakers should trade Austin Reaves.
Advertisement
On Game Over, the new podcast that Paul cohosts with Max Kellerman on The Ringer, the super agent proposed trading Reaves to Memphis for Jaren Jackson Jr. In fact, he laid out his reasoning by citing JJJ’s age aligning with Luka Doncic, and the position he plays giving the Lakers more roster flexibility than if they signed Reaves to a huge extension this summer.
Whether or not the trade idea has any merit or not isn’t the point. The point is that Paul is supposed to be representing LeBron’s best interests, and it hardly seems possible to do that while constantly giving his opinions and hot takes about his client’s team. LeBron was asked last night to comment on Paul’s actions, and he did his best to separate Paul’s role as his agent with whatever else he has going on in his life.
“Rich, that’s what he’s doing,” LeBron said. “That’s his whole thing … Rich has his perspective of what he sees, I have my perspective. I’m a grown man, he’s a grown man and I think people should realize that grown men can say whatever the f*** they want to say and it shouldn’t reflect somebody else is saying it,” he added, essentially washing his hands off of it.
LeBron also said that he and Reaves haven’t been affected by the comments, but that doesn’t mean that he or his camp were just pushing it under the rug. According to ESPN, Reaves’ agent Reggie Barry approached Paul at halftime and spent more than five minutes reportedly talking to him about the comments.
It’s a huge ongoing distraction for the Lakers, and it’s mind-boggling to try to understand why Paul doesn’t see it that way. LeBron and he have had an extremely successful partnership over the years, but his comments are seemingly making the 4 time NBA champion’s life more difficult.
One theory online is that Paul’s podcast is a 4D chess move by lifelong Celtic fan and Laker hater Bill Simmons, the founder of The Ringer who greenlit their podcast, Game Over.
In the meantime, Paul needs to either quit doing the podcast, or at the very least stop talking about the Lakers and trying to get LeBron’s teammates traded. It’s just not a good look.
