When Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul suggested on his podcast that the Los Angeles Lakers should consider trading Austin Reaves to the Memphis Grizzlies for Jaren Jackson Jr., there were a lot of questions. One of the biggest was whether these thoughts were shared by Paul’s biggest client, and Reaves’ teammate, LeBron James.
Reaves and James have been teammates for five years now and have developed a close bond with LeBron regularly praising the young guard to the highest degree. But comments coming from his agent that the Lakers should trade Reaves could potentially cause a rift between the two sides.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case as James made it clear that there has been no fallout between himself and Reaves over the comments, while also adding that Paul can say whatever he wants to say, but that doesn’t mean it is a reflection of his own thoughts, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
James said there was no fallout between him and Reaves, who is his longest-tenured teammate on the Lakers, after the podcast episode.
“AR knows how I feel about him,” James told ESPN. “All you got to do is look at us on the bench. Me and AR talk every single day. So, AR knows how I feel about him and I hope AR — or his camp — don’t look at me and think this is words from me are coming through Rich.
“Rich has his perspective of what he sees, I have my perspective. I’m a grown man, he’s a grown man and I think people should realize that grown men can say whatever the f— they want to say and it shouldn’t reflect somebody else is saying it.”
As James said, Paul is his own man and has his own thoughts on things and they don’t always line up with his own. The issue is that Paul, acting as LeBron’s agent, has come out in the past and spoken on things in regards to his current situation and roster construction so differentiating between those can be difficult at times.
An active agent hosting a podcast and commenting on current situations around the league has never been done so it will take some adjusting. But the important thing is that the bond between Reaves and James is perfectly fine and there are no issues within the Lakers due to Paul’s comments.
Austin Reaves’ agent spoke with Rich Paul at Lakers game
While everything seems to be just fine between Reaves and James, there were some things that needed to be cleared up between their representation as Reaves’ agent was reportedly seen speaking with Paul at halftime of the Lakers’ game against the Hawks.
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