On the first day of free agency, the Los Angeles Lakers received the news of LeBron James deciding to play his 24th season elsewhere. This is tough news to cope with for some fans given how impactful James was last season, propelling L.A. to an improbable first-round series win without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves to start the series, but a new era is now getting underway.
Change was expected as general manager Rob Pelinka needed to configure a team better suited around their new No. 1 option in Doncic. Despite the 41-year-old playing well in a third option role, Klutch Sports CEO and James’ agent Rich Paul explained why he decided to leave Los Angeles.
“Once he got to a place where he said, ‘Listen, man. I understand where things are and I get it. I know that’s probably where I can make the most money. For me where I’m at today, it’s probably not the best thing for me to do. I probably will just go away from that,'” Paul said of James on the Game Over podcast with Max Kellerman. “And I said, ‘Are you 100 percent sure?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I’m 100 percent sure that’s not a place where I want to return.'”
Departing from a city he spent eight seasons and won a championship in must have been a tough decision and Paul made sure that leaving the Lakers is what James wanted before letting the organization know.
“Yeah, and I double and triple checked. When you talk about the happiness of it all, versus the team that can get a little convoluted there, so I didn’t want, I just wanna know because if I have to set the table and this is one of the teams that’s out that are actually in and now they’re out,” Paul said.
“There’s two parts to that come to this, I also have to place the call because that team has to have an understanding of it and they have to go on and do their business as well. The one thing we definitely wanted to do was to be conscious of that and be respectful to the organization.”
Paul detailed his level of communication with the Lakers during this whole process.
“The first day that they could talk to their own player, I talked to [Rob Pelinka] and JJ [Redick], we talked,” he said. “We’ve had cordial conversations throughout and I know there were public talks about us supposedly meeting and things like that, we were trying to figure out what it looks like and get things aligned. And it just got to a point where Bron was like, ‘There really doesn’t need to be a meeting, this is where I’m at.'”
Rumors swirled that the Lakers never even offered James and new contract, but Paul explained why that was not necessarily and the team’s messaging about wanting him to return.
“There didn’t need to be one, they wanted to bring him back obviously. There didn’t need to be one and I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.”
Pelinka sprang into action quickly following James’ decision by coming to terms on deals with Walker Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Colin Sexton. Trying to fill the void of an all-time great is a tall task, but Los Angeles is proactive in their pursuit to surround Doncic with a championship-caliber roster.
Magic Johnson thanks LeBron James & Rich Paul following Lakers departure
Seeing a Lakers team next season without James out on the floor take some time to get used to, but no one will forget what he provided to this city. Magic Johnson spoke out on social media, thanking James and Rich Paul for their services after he recruited them eight years ago.
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