Within the massive article outlining a lot of drama and infighting between the Buss family, there was a report that Los Angeles Lakers governor Jeanie Buss at some point turned on superstar LeBron James. The report noted multiple things that reportedly rubbed Buss the wrong way including the idea that LeBron, Rich Paul and Klutch Sports exerted over the franchise.
James himself has not spoken on the article or the alleged issues that were reported, but Paul responded to what was outlined on the latest edition of his Game Over podcast with Max Kellerman, saying that he doesn’t care what any article says, adding that he knows the relationship they have with the Lakers and it has been great:
“There’s an article written every day. Who gives a shit, I don’t. You don’t know what’s true, what’s not true, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But what I will say is I seen some of the stuff that came out about it and obviously they talked about different scenarios in terms of the power we may have and whatever… All I know is this. There’s an appreciation for guys like Michael Irvin, there should be. Our legends. And there damn sure should be appreciation for a guy like LeBron.
“I think oftentimes, people decide what not to do for reasons that don’t really have substance to it… The article talked about there’s an issue with LeBron and Klutch having too much power and all these type of things… But these type of things happen all the time, and people don’t know your relationship. I’m just saying that you don’t know if any of this stuff is true. You only know your relationship with other people. And what I know is from the time we got to L.A., we’ve been treated great. There was a championship won. We played Rummikub in the bubble, had a great time, lunch every day.
I think when people see things are going well, they try their best to poke holes and try to manipulate relationships and things like that. And in any relationship, no matter who it is, no matter how long you’ve been with somebody, there’s going to be some type of annoyance at some point. That’s part of it, we’re all human people. But I like to focus on the things that were done and were done well and done great. Every year, you’re fighting to try to reach a common goal. And when you have the level of players that I’ve had, that relationship a lot of times becomes a partnership. There’s people that are very envious of that partnership and so every day they try to put forth things and put out things, BS information and so forth.
“So I want to say, we’re not falling for that. Nobody is falling for that, I’m not falling for that. I’m appreciative of what I would say was the last seven or eight years, or whatever it was. It was great and you won. There’s nothing to talk about there. When these type of articles come out, people want to take the clickbait, you’ll see stuff floating around… You gotta be unbothered by this type of stuff. I am. It’s like, whatever.”
Only Buss and her inner circle truly knows her thoughts during those times and whether she had really soured on James to that extent. From Paul’s point of view, the relationship between he, LeBron and the Lakers has been a positive one and that’s all he can speak on.
James is largely credited with the emergence of the ‘player empowerment era,’ but the Lakers are a franchise that is on a different level than any other in the NBA. Some clashes between the two over eight years LeBron has been with the franchise is to be expected, but Paul is refusing to allow this to grow any further on his part.
Lakers Governor Jeanie Buss releases statement addressing relationship with LeBron James
For her part, Jeanie Buss has already released a statement addressing the report on her supposed fractured relationship with LeBron James, believing it is unfair for LeBron to be pulled into her family drama.
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