The Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors are two storied franchises currently in similar predicaments with aging superstars in LeBron James and Stephen Curry but not enough help around them to contend for a championship.
Both teams found themselves in the Play-In Tournament last season with the Lakers eventually losing in the first round and the Warriors not even advancing to the playoffs. And this offseason, neither team has made moves significant enough to get back into the championship mix.
But going back to the trade deadline last year, a big story came out that the Warriors attempted to complete a deal for James to pair him with Curry, Draymond Green and the rest of their core.
If that is something that James had interest in then the Lakers and owner Jeanie Buss may have considered it. As it turns out though, LeBron’s agent and Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul made sure that a trade never took place as he did not want to see the superstar changes teams for a fourth time, per NBA insider Marc Stein:
The notion of James leaving the Lakers, however, has long been regarded as a long shot and is obviously even harder to imagine now than it was previously after the purple and gold drafted his son Bronny James in June with the No. 55 overall pick and duly signed Bronny to a four-year contract.
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.
It’s interesting to see that Paul has that type of influence on James and his decision-making, although it’s not super surprising considering how close they have been their entire lives.
Despite the Lakers’ inactivity this offseason, James still chose to re-sign with the team for his 22nd NBA season. But that doesn’t mean things still can’t change down the road as if the Lakers fail to improve this season, then trade rumors could pick up around the deadline.
The same could be said for the Warriors and Curry as after teaming up with James in the Olympics, the two have to be envisioning what it would look like if they were on the same NBA team either in L.A. or the Bay Area. That should make for an interesting subplot this season although it is hard to imagine either team being willing to part with their superstars.
Stephen Curry admits he had ‘healthy resentment’ for LeBron James
LeBron James and Stephen Curry being teammates in the NBA would certainly take some getting used to considering they have been rivals for so many years.
In fact, before teaming up on Team USA this summer, Curry admitted to having a ‘healthy resentment’ towards James when they were meeting in the NBA Finals year after year.
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