Rich Paul made headlines this week when the NBA super agent suggested on his podcast that the Los Angeles Lakers should trade star guard Austin Reaves. But while many were quick to connect Paul\u2019s comments to his most famous client, LeBron James is adamant that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you all know by now, Rich is his own man and what Rich says is not a direct reflection of me and how I feel,\u201d the 4-time NBA MVP told ESPN\u2019s Dave McMenamin<\/a> following the Lakers\u2019 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday. \u201cAnd I hope people know that. I hope people know that and if they\u2019re not sensible to know that, then I don\u2019t know what to tell them.\u201d<\/p>\n James\u2019 comments follow the hypothetical trade that Paul created on a recent episode of his new podcast for The Ringer, Game Over with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul<\/a>. While analyzing ways that the Lakers could improve defensively, the Klutch Sports CEO suggested Los Angeles could trade Reaves to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Jaren Jackson Jr.<\/p>\n Paul also noted that the trade could be a win-win for all involved, as it would allow Reaves to sign a sizable extension with Memphis. That part of the hypothetical trade is especially notable, as both James and Reaves are slated to become free agents following the conclusion of the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n Yet despite many perceiving Paul\u2019s comments as an attempt to prevent the Lakers from paying Reaves over James, the 41-year-old forward insists that his agent wasn\u2019t speaking on his behalf. He also reinforced that he and Reaves have a strong relationship, while also advocating for Paul\u2019s right to provide his perspective on his podcast.<\/p>\n \u201cAR knows how I feel about him,\u201d he told ESPN. \u201cAll 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 \u2014 or his camp \u2014 don\u2019t look at me and think this is words from me are coming through Rich.<\/p>\n \u201cRich has his perspective of what he sees, I have my perspective. I\u2019m a grown man, he\u2019s a grown man and I think people should realize that grown men can say whatever the f*** they want to say and it shouldn\u2019t reflect somebody else is saying it.\u201d<\/p>\n That may be the case, but this doesn\u2019t appear to be a controversy that will be going away anytime soon. Especially not with McMenamin also reporting that Reaves\u2019 agent approached Paul regarding the comments, and with longtime Lakers reporter Jovan Buha reporting that some within the organization haven\u2019t been happy with the agent\u2019s podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n If nothing else, James is at least now on record that Paul\u2019s podcast isn\u2019t a vehicle to advance his own agenda. Still, that won\u2019t stop many from reading between the lines of what his agent and childhood friend says on his newfound public platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rich Paul made headlines this week when the NBA super agent suggested on his podcast that the Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[1013,7,73861,4034,1698,300,4044,185,251,150,4033,4043,6,564],"class_list":{"0":"post-536491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-game-over-with-max-kellerman-and-rich-paul","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-lakers","13":"tag-lakers","14":"tag-lalakers","15":"tag-lebron-james","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-losangeleslakers","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-rich-paul"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}