“I Was Figuring Out if It’s AI”: Jaren Jackson Jr. Reacts to Rich Paul Suggesting Lakers Should Trade for Him

The 2025-26 NBA season has been far from perfect for the Los Angeles Lakers. Even though they had an amazing start to the year, their defensive flaws have become too big to hide. Unfortunately, there aren’t many players on their roster who could provide a solution. Interestingly, LeBron James’ agent, Rich Paul, believes Jaren Jackson Jr. would be perfect in the purple and gold.

Since the dawn of time, the Lakers have always been a team in the business of star hunting. That is how they were able to capture their most recent championship in 2022. They pivoted from young aspiring stars to acquire Anthony Davis. Last season, they swiftly moved Davis to acquire Luka Doncic, ushering in the next generation of Lakers basketball.

But as great as the Slovenian star is, he can’t single-handedly lead the team to a championship. There is still a lot of roster construction that needs to happen around Doncic to build a legitimate contender. The team, as it is, doesn’t have what it takes to go toe-to-toe with the best in the West in a seven-game series.

Rich Paul is aware of the situation himself but instead of suggesting that the team to offload some role players, he looked at Austin Reaves as the trade piece for a specific former Defensive Player of the Year.

“If I was the Lakers I would be targeting the Memphis Grizzlies as a trade partner for Jaren Jackson,” Paul said. “There’s a world where you can do what’s best for your team, and what’s best for Austin. Austin deserves to get paid. Memphis would definitely pay Austin.”

Rich Paul says if he ran the Lakers, he would call Memphis Grizzlies to trade for Jaren Jackson Jr for a package with Austin Reaves

“If I was the Lakers I would be targeting the Memphis Grizzlies as a trade partner for Jaren Jackson… If you’re building around Luka you need… pic.twitter.com/vEj647cWfT

— Heat Central (@HeatCulture13) January 12, 2026

Of course, Lakers fans couldn’t believe Paul would even think about trading Reaves, who has been a revelation this season. Paul’s comments seem even more outrageous considering the ties he has to the franchise as Lebron’s agent. That is why Jackson was hesitant to buy into the authenticity of Paul’s words.

“There’s just a lot of podcasts,” Jackson said. “At first, I didn’t think it was real. You have to figure out if it’s real, usually now, and I’m not as versed technology-wise as these people younger than me. I was figuring out if it’s AI, deepfake, all that stuff. That’s all I had, I didn’t really have much of a reaction.”

Many believed Paul’s comments were disruptive to the team and looked to James to put his agent in place. When presented with the matter, James set the record straight.

“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,” James proclaimed to the media.

Although LeBron doesn’t have much of a problem with Paul’s comments, Reaves’ agent certainly did. At halftime during the Lakers’ recent game against the Atlanta Hawks, Reggie Perry of AMR Agency made his way to Paul. Reportedly, the two had a conversation lasting more than 5 minutes, which revolved around Paul’s public Reaves trade proposal.

Unlike some NBA players who have taken a break from their podcasts amidst a few confrontations, Paul doesn’t have any intention of halting his content. It appears that he is unapologetically himself, even if that’s to the detriment of his client.