It’s not unusual for some pretty insane rumors to fly around in the lead-up to the NBA trade deadline, but on Thursday, we got an especially surprising one via David Pingalore of KTLA in Los Angeles. According to him, the Lakers’ top priority ahead of next week is to find a trade for LeBron James.
Hearing from @nba peeps @KingJames is the top of the @Lakers list to trade the 39 year old. Pelinka is looking for the right team to dance with and is close to a suitor Lbj and AD both out tonight. @KTLA @KTLA5SPORTS #nba #Lakers
— David pingalore (@DavidPingalore) February 1, 2024
Obviously, the Lakers trading James would be shocking, and it would seem completely insane if not for the fact that Pingalore’s gotten a whole lot of stuff right over the years. As such, basketball fans spent Thursday night wondering if this could end up happening, but on Friday morning, a piece published by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst got a pretty direct answer from someone who would know: Rich Paul, the Klutch Sports agent who represents James.
“LeBron won’t be traded, and we aren’t asking to be,” Paul told Windhorst.
Now, it’s worth mentioning that Paul is not going to say that Los Angeles plans on trading James — who, it must be said, can become an unrestricted free agent after this season — sometime in the next few days, but this does put him on the record about how the next few days are going to go. Right after the original report dropped, the Lakers beat the Celtics in Boston, 115-104, despite the fact that James and Anthony Davis were out due to injuries. With the win, L.A. moved to 25-25 on the year, which has them in ninth place in the Western Conference.
The Lakers have been at the center of trade rumors for weeks. While that’s the case most years, the team’s struggles with consistency have led to them getting linked to players like Dejounte Murray of the Atlanta Hawks.
