Before last season’s trade deadline, there were rumors that LeBron James might play for the Golden State Warriors, but no deal was ever close to being done. It seems that LeBron’s longtime buddy and agent had a significant influence on it.
Rich Paul was “adamantly opposed” to James being moved, which is one of the reasons negotiations between the Lakers and Warriors never progressed, according to NBA reporter Marc Stein. According to Stein, Paul’s main worry was that LeBron’s legacy would suffer if the four-time NBA MVP joined a new team.
According to Tristi Rodriguez of NBC Sports Bay Area, “Sources say Paul implored both teams to scrap the concept — largely because he wanted to insulate James from potential backlash over switching teams for the fourth time in his career — despite some owner-to-owner dialogue between the Warriors’ Joe Lacob and the Lakers’ Jeanie Buss.
James getting moved never felt like a genuine possibility. We can state with even more certainty that LeBron was never going to allow the Lakers to sell him, even if it was rumored that Golden State had a real interest in the transaction, now that the Lakers have picked Bronny James.
LeBron’s prior deal with the Lakers did not have a no-trade provision, but it does now. Now that further details on Paul have revealed, his earlier assertion regarding the Warriors trade rumor is much more unlikely to be true.
