New Details Emerge in Lakers-Warriors Trade Talks for LeBron James

LeBron James hugging Stephen Curry.

A new wrinkle emerged in the foiled Golden State Warriors‘ trade pursuit of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James at the trade deadline.According to Substack’s NBA insider Marc Stein, it was James’ powerful agent Rich Paul of Klutch Sports who nixed the talks before they even got past the exploratory stage.“It is believed that the Lakers would have reluctantly entertained trade conversations with the Warriors before last February’s trade deadline if James wanted them to seriously engage Golden State on a potential deal.

Yet league sources say that the reported talks between the teams at the time never got that far in large part because James’ agent Rich Paul was adamantly opposed to the idea of James swapping Southern California for Northern California,” Stein wrote.

Paul was protective of James’ image, according to Stein.“Sources say Paul implored both teams to scrap the concept — despite some owner-to-owner dialogue between the Warriors’ Joe Lacob and the Lakers’ Jeanie Buss and Green’s determination to lobby James to push for relocation to the Bay Area — largely because he wanted to insulate James from potential backlash over switching teams for the fourth time in his career,” Stein wrote.James went on record, revealing the trade talks did not reach him until it was reported.“It [the trade talks] didn’t go far at all,” James said on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” broadcast on February 18.

 “I actually heard about it when everybody else heard about it. Obviously, you know, Charles [Barkley] has been in the league, Kenny [Smith] has been in the league, Shaq has been in the league… and sometimes, there’s conversations that happen behind closed doors that you don’t even know about.”