{"id":335171,"date":"2025-12-09T19:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T19:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335171\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T19:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T19:27:09","slug":"lebron-james-agent-rich-paul-doubts-lakers-can-fulfill-final-wish-for-4-time-nba-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335171\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James’ agent Rich Paul doubts Lakers can fulfill final wish for 4-time NBA champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James’ agent Rich Paul doubts Lakers can fulfill final wish for 4-time NBA champion<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> are off to a hot start a quarter of the way through the NBA regular season. This comes after an offseason in which it was a real possibility that LeBron James could have been traded. That possibility became significant enough that NBA insider Brian Windhorst didn\u2019t view it as a crazy hypothetical.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cMy conversations over the last 3 days have crystallized that the Lakers are essentially viewing LeBron as an expiring contract… I’m just unlocking the door because I am not as convinced as before if it’s impossibility,\u201d Windhorst said.<\/p>\n

With the Lakers getting off to such a strong start, the assumption is that they have a real shot at contending for an NBA championship come playoff time. However, James\u2019 agent Rich Paul doesn\u2019t believe the Lakers are true contenders, as he mentioned in a sit-down interview with Max Kellerman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they have enough to get to WCF\u2026 their style of play will be very easy to defend when you get into playoffs,\u201d Paul told Kellerman.<\/a><\/p>\n

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While he noted that things could certainly change at the deadline with a move or two, James has one final wish before he retires: he wants to be part of a contender. That\u2019s what Paul stated back in the summer when James trade rumors were swirling.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeBron wants to compete for a championship,\u201d Rich Paul told ESPN.<\/a> \u201cHe knows the Lakers are building for the future. He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all. We are very appreciative of the partnership that we’ve had for eight years with Jeanie [Buss] and Rob [Pelinka] and consider the Lakers as a critical part of his career.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Paul, the Lakers are a good team, but not competitive enough to contend for a championship in the second half of the season. This implies he doesn\u2019t believe the Lakers can fulfill James\u2019 final wish at the end of his career.<\/p>\n

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Paul also mentioned that James wasn\u2019t going to be traded, but considering this goes against what he said in the summer, things might get interesting. It certainly seems that if the Lakers don\u2019t make moves at the trade deadline, Paul will be unsatisfied with the team\u2019s chances of a title run for his client.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James’ agent Rich Paul doubts Lakers can fulfill final wish for 4-time NBA champion originally appeared on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[55184,49,48,2327,8231,459,16155,4210,82],"class_list":["post-335171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-brian-windhorst","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-nba-championship","tag-rich-paul","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}