After a cryptic statement upon LeBron James opting into his contract with the Lakers, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul made sure everyone knew that they haven’t requested a trade…yet.
When LeBron James opted into his contract over the weekend, it came with a statement that could be pretty easily interpreted as a thinly veiled ultimatum or even a soft launch of a trade request.
It raised the temperature and pressure on the Lakers front office, but it also raised some questions as to what LeBron was trying to accomplish, too. Was he really eyeing moves to other teams across the league?
After seeing the reaction, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul really wanted to make sure that everyone knew LeBron was definitely NOT asking for a trade.
First, there was Chris Haynes on NBA TV talking about his conversation with Paul.
“There has been no trade talk, there has been no extension talk.”@ChrisBHaynes reports on his recent call with Rich Paul and rumors around LeBron’s future in Los Angeles pic.twitter.com/GmyQf8xkXW
— NBA TV (@NBATV) June 30, 2025
Then, Paul got on the phone with Dave McMenamin of ESPN to relay the same message.
Rich Paul also told ESPN he informed both Rob Pelinka and Lara Beth Seager, Luka Doncic’s business manager, about LeBron James’ intent to pick up his option and the statement he planned to release before it happened Sunday. “No one was blindsided,” Paul said. https://t.co/ZZeuV1JSbd
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) July 1, 2025
Here’s a full transcript of what McMenamin said in the above clip:
“When I talked to Rich, he told me that he has not any discussion with the Lakers about wanting a trade on the back end of this statement. He did say that four teams have contacted him in the last 24 hours wanting to talk trades, but Rich didn’t have any substantive conversations with those teams, either. Right now, LeBron is focused on playing on a championship-caliber roster. Rich told me ‘like, there’s no guarantees in building a championship-caliber roster, but we know what it looks like, and what it doesn’t look like.’ And we’ll see in a week from now, when Rob Pelinka is finished doing his work with this roster if it looks like a winning, realistic situation.”
In summary, Rich Paul’s defense was “My ‘We’re not demanding a trade!’ shirt is leading to lots of questions answered by my shirt!”
Paul and LeBron are two very smart people who have been doing this for a long time. They knew what (at least some) of the reaction would be to that statement when they crafted it. Everything about what they did was intentional.
The question would then be why they chose to do it. Was it a miscalculation of the leverage LeBron has? Was it a last-ditch attempt to use said leverage?
Any time LeBron says something, it’s going to draw attention and focus. That being said, LeBron is in a new position as no longer the priority of the franchise. Perhaps that led him not to realize the Lakers wouldn’t be as threatened by his demand as they were in previous years?
Whatever led to it, Monday was very clearly Paul going on the defensive and recorrecting the narrative that LeBron hasn’t requested a trade. At least not yet.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.