Rich Paul scrapped LeBron-Warriors trade concept for worst possible reason

The Golden State Warriors made waves ahead of the 2024 NBA trade deadline by discussing the possibility of a LeBron James trade with the Los Angeles Lakers. That almost felt like a fake report at the time. It was difficult to wrap one's head around the magnitude of a LeBron trade. The repercussions would have been vast.

James has planted deep roots in LA, both on and off the court, but the Lakers continue to fail him in the front office. The roster around James hasn't been up to par for a while. The Warriors offered a chance for LeBron to presumably finish his career next to Stephen Curry, pairing two all-time greats in one final bid for glory.

Even at 39 years old, James can contribute to a title contender. He has a top-shelf running mate in Anthony Davis, but the LeBron-Steph hypothetical has inspired imaginations in the basketball sphere for more than a decade. They will be framed as rivals in the history books, but we have all thought about what LeBron and Steph would look like together at least once. It's an NBA right of passage.

This summer offered a brief glimpse of what could have been when LeBron and Steph won gold at the Olympics. LeBron inked a two-year extension with the Lakers at the onset of free agency, so the dream is mostly dead. He is going to spend a couple seasons with his son in LA, then ride off into the sunset.

According to the latest intel from NBA insider Marc Stein, however, the Warriors were closer than expected to acquiring the 20-time All-Star last season. The Lakers would have explored a trade if LeBron requested it, but Rich Paul, the Klutch Sports CEO and LeBron's longtime friend, advised his client and both front offices against the move.

"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."

Rich Paul shut down LeBron James-Warriors trade talks last season

The reason Paul lobbied against the trade is simple. He wanted to "insulate" LeBron against backlash from switching teams a fourth time. James' 21-year career has been split between three teams — Cleveland, Miami, and of course Los Angeles. We can point to LeBron's fellow Olympian Kevin Durant as an all-time great who has been criticized (fairly or unfairly) for switching teams late into his career.

While Paul's fear of backlash is understandable, it's hard to imagine a worse reason to put LeBron-Golden State talks on ice. It would be one thing if LeBron just wanted to stay in LA, as we all expected. It would have been another if the Lakers simply did not want to engage. But, to prevent what could have been such a milestone transaction for what amounts to misguided image perseveration is... decidedly lame.

Why are we catering to the worst aspects of legacy discourse in the NBA? Nobody can sit here in good faith and say that Kevin Durant's legacy did not improve because of his decision to join Golden State and win championships. LeBron's connection to the Lakers is paper thin. It was a business move, and always has been. This isn't the same as Kobe Bryant requesting a trade, or trying to imagine Dirk Nowitzki leaving Dallas for San Antonio in his twilight years. LeBron went to the Lakers because they're the Lakers. His hometown team — the one he's actually indebted to on any level — is the Cavs, and LeBron left the Cavs twice.

LeBron is the greatest basketball player since Michael Jordan. He will always be embroiled in bad-faith arguments, whether it's on prime-time FS1 or at the neighborhood courts. You simply cannot be as great as LeBron, as important as LeBron, and not have a certain portion of the basketball-viewing population trying to tear you down.

That does not mean those opinions carry any real weight on the sands of time. LeBron's legacy is concrete, as is Steph's for that matter. If LeBron was to win a championship alongside Steph in Golden State, that would be a historic moment, a brilliant accomplishment. It may take time for the court of public opinion to arrive at that verdict, but it would eventually. All basketball discourse softens over time, and we generally come to appreciate great players for who they were. Nobody really cares that Michael Jordan went to the Wizards, right?

We could have seen LeBron and Steph on the same team. That alone would have been worth its weight in gold, or more aptly, worth its weight in bad tweets and unbearable Skip Bayless ramblings. It's one thing to stay in Los Angeles just to stay in Los Angeles, but it's a shame that we were deprived of such a fascinating possibility because Rich Paul was worried about LeBron's carefully manicured image.