As 41-year-old LeBron James enters another postseason series as an underdog with the Los Angeles Lakers, his agent Rich Paul is already prepared for current and former players who will pounce if James loses to the reigning champion Thunder.<\/p>\n
James is expected to be without costar Luka Doncic for most of the second-round series against Oklahoma City, and despite James turning back the clock against Houston in the first round, the Thunder are heavy favorites.<\/p>\n
In the latest episode of the\u00a0Game Over podcast<\/a>, Paul contrasted the reaction to James\u2019 playoff performance to that of the recently ousted Nikola Jokic, claiming current and former players in the media are \u201chappy to see\u201d James lose.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason why you don\u2019t hear a lot of conversation about Jokic is I don\u2019t believe a lot of people are happy to see Jokic lose,\u201d Paul said. \u201cBut when LeBron loses, people are happy to see him lose. Especially his peers. Guys who played in the league, that have platforms today. For different reasons, it\u2019s extra. They are happy to see him lose.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul acknowledged that any star athlete should be open to critique, but said negativity crosses a line<\/a> when it comes with an \u201cagenda.\u201d And all too often, Paul claimed, the commentators who come down hardest on James<\/a> are members of the NBA fraternity who are driven by such an agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cSome players, I see the extra sauce,\u201d he said. \u201cI just think that in our community, it makes you feel better when someone else has a thing of detriment placed upon them because of what you lack and what you always wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul even detailed how his agency, Klutch Sports, has lost out on young clients it was pursuing because NBA players who dislike James intervened.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel the effects of it, because I\u2019ve had NBA current players, and former players, involve themselves in a recruiting process with a kid \u2014 it\u2019s not their son \u2014 and purposely push a kid to a different agency because of their disdain for LeBron, and I\u2019m his guy,\u201d Paul said. \u201cSo I know what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n While Paul did not delve deeply into the dynamics surrounding James\u2019 relationship with the broader crop of living NBA players, he hinted at deeper cultural issues at play. Regardless of the precise nature of James\u2019 perception of the league, Paul alleges that it hurts Klutch\u2019s business as well as James\u2019 legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As 41-year-old LeBron James enters another postseason series as an underdog with the Los Angeles Lakers, his agent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,73861,12888,185,564],"class_list":["post-726656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-game-over-with-max-kellerman-and-rich-paul","tag-klutch-sports","tag-lebron-james","tag-rich-paul"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116524281055474240","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726656","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=726656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726656\/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=726656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}