Rich Paul on why LeBron James is leaving the Lakers
· Yahoo Sports
LeBron James is moving on from the Los Angeles Lakers, but he's not retiring from the NBA, at least not yet. He informed the Lakers on Tuesday morning that he will not be re-signing with them in free agency, and he did so just hours before the official start of the league's free agency period.
Ever since James exercised the player option on his contract last summer, there had been speculation that the 2025-26 season would be his last one in a Purple and Gold uniform. There was also speculation that the Lakers simply didn't want him back because they wanted to move on from him and build around Luka Doncic in earnest.
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His longtime agent, Rich Paul, said on the "Game Over" podcast that he talked to the superstar about what the main motive for his career moving forward would be.
“We normally sit down, and we talk about best fit,” Paul said, via Heat Central. “Obviously, he’s always been a max player, so that’s always been [a factor], the team have to have max cap space… But for this particular time, Max [Kellerman], it was a lot different. And I asked him, I said, ‘Listen, this is going into Year 24. You don’t owe anybody anything. You’ve accomplished more than any player's ever accomplished. You got every record, all the stuff. Let’s find one foundational thing to build off of, and if I ask you that, what would it be?”
James responded, according to Paul, by saying he wanted to "have complete happiness." Paul then started to talk to James about possibly staying with the Lakers.
“So if it’s about happiness, then it can’t be about money,” Paul said. “If it’s about happiness, because if it’s the most money, then it’s not necessarily the most happiness, et cetera… I said, ‘Well, where are you at in terms of returning right here? Where we at?’ And he said 80 percent.”
Paul said that was how his first conversation with James went several weeks ago, but that later on, things changed and James' desire to stay put went down.
“Once he got to a place to where he said, ‘Listen, man, I understand where things are, and I get it. I know that’s where I could probably make the most money. But for me, where I’m at today, it’s probably not the best thing for me to do. I probably would just go away from that.' And I said, ‘Are you 100% sure?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I’m 100% sure that that’s not a place I would want to return.'”
Paul then said that James felt there was no need to have a meeting with the Lakers' front office, which seems to match with reports that there were no meetings held between his camp and the organization. The agent did admit, however, that the Lakers did want to keep James.
At this point, it is anyone's guess why James felt he couldn't find "complete happiness' with the Lakers, especially if it wasn't about money. Los Angeles now has a considerably younger and more versatile roster, at least on the offensive end, but it has a hole at the forward position, especially at power forward.
One could argue that had James remained in place, he could've made this Lakers roster into a championship contender. But instead, he will decide between the Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat, or possibly even join another team that no one is currently expecting him to move to.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Rich Paul on why LeBron James is leaving the Lakers