Back in February, we learned that the Los Angeles Lakers spoke with the Golden State Warriors about a potential trade that would’ve sent LeBron James north to San Francisco and paired him with Stephen Curry. James was asked about those talks and said he learned about them when everyone else did — via a Woj tweet — indicating things never got very serious, and that was about where that conversation ended.
However, after seeing James and Curry dominate together in Paris at the Olympics, there has been a new round of discussion about whether the two could team up at some point before retiring. That led Marc Stein to do a little digging on those pre-deadline talks, where he learned from a source that those conversations between the two teams owners ended as soon as Rich Paul got wind of talks, as James’ agent reportedly “implored” the two sides to drop the conversations in an effort to keep LeBron from the backlash of another move.
It is believed that the Lakers would have reluctantly entertained trade conversations with the Warriors before last February’s trade deadline if James wanted them to seriously engage Golden State on a potential deal. Yet league sources say that the reported talks between the teams at the time never got that far in large part because James’ agent Rich Paul was adamantly opposed to the idea of James swapping Southern California for Northern California.
Sources say Paul implored both teams to scrap the concept — despite some owner-to-owner dialogue between the Warriors’ Joe Lacob and the Lakers’ Jeanie Buss and Green’s determination to lobby James to push for relocation to the Bay Area — largely because he wanted to insulate James from potential backlash over switching teams for the fourth time in his career.
This showing up in a piece that also includes reporting that the Warriors felt like the Clippers and Jazz weren’t negotiating in good faith in George and Markkanen trade talks leads me to believe this is a further effort from Golden State to show effort in adding star talent around Stephen Curry. After Curry’s sensational Olympic run, it’s clear he’s still capable of playing at the highest level, and there is some pressure on them to build a contender around him.
As for the perspective from Paul’s side, James has caught heat when moving teams in the past so I can fully understand wanting to keep that from happening again — particularly if LeBron wasn’t fully on board with the plan. While there would undoubtedly be some of that coming his way if he was dealt to the Warriors, given where both teams are right now, I’m not sure the response would be as negative from the general fan as they maybe fear. In any case, the conversations never got further than the very preliminary stages and this probably isn’t really “a thing,” but it’s also mid-August and we don’t have a lot else going on in the NBA world, so the LeBron-Steph combo is something fun to think about.
