Rich Paul Downplays Jeanie Buss’ ESPN Article on LeBron James, Blames It on a “Slow News Week”

Tension often turns into theater in the NBA, and recently, LeBron James and Jeanie Buss have dominated headlines in Los Angeles. Buss allegedly took issue with James’ ego, with rumors suggesting that the Lakers governor even considered trading him at one point. The article that fueled this narrative felt like a hit piece, but it completely missed the mark, with Rich Paul insisting that inactivity in the league was why it blew up in the first place.

Buss herself released a statement expressing how much LeBron has meant to both her and the Lakers franchise. Stephen A. Smith, a longtime critic of James, also weighed in on the report and surprisingly sided with LeBron. He went as far as praising him for putting the organization back on the map.

Paul meanwhile, understands how NBA media operates, and being James‘ agent, he knows what the King has had to deal with over the years.

“It was a slow news cycle. Slow news week,” said Paul on the Game Over podcast. “The way business works is, you have the Lakers playing Clippers Thursday night, so there was no trades happening around the league. This is an opportune time to drop this article that really had nothing to do with me or him (LeBron).” 

From the get go, this entire situation felt extraordinarily far fetched. James is already subjected to plenty of negative press for various reasons, but this report surfaced at a particularly strange time. It was not near the playoffs. No major trades were looming. And, as Paul would reiterate moments later, James wanted to be in Los Angeles.

“When we decided to come to L.A., obviously LJ made the choice, there was really nothing that said there’s any pressure for us to do anything. Just came back from 3-1. Everyone seemed to think they knew why he was coming to LA, everyone thought he wanted to be the 6’9 Denzel Washington which wasn’t true,” Paul said.

“When the decision was made to come there was a lot of phone calls I got, texts, like ‘why?’ For different reasons. We’ve always been people to block out the noise. We’ve always been people to focus on what is in front of us. If we say we’re gonna do something, we do it. In this case there was conversations had and promises made, and I think those promises were made good on despite what anybody had to say,” he added.

This whole saga feels less like a fracture and more like a reminder of how the Lakers operate when the spotlight gets quiet. LeBron becomes the easiest headline in the league. That is the price of being both the biggest star and the most polarizing figure in NBA history.

The Buss family is not secretly plotting a breakup. Rich Paul is not losing sleep. LeBron is not packing his bags. This was noise. Loud, dramatic noise dressed up as insider tension. As usual, it says far more about the league’s obsession with LeBron than it does about any real issue brewing in Los Angeles.