About the episode
The decision has been made, and LeBron is headed to the City of Brotherly Love (1:58)! Rich breaks down how the deal was made, what made LeBron choose Philly, how this shakes up the dynamics of the Eastern Conference, and more. Plus, we get to your emails (39:11).
Have a question for Max and Rich? Leave us a voicemail at 424-240-8341. Or send an email to gameover@spotify.com.
Hosts: Max Kellerman and Rich Paul
Producers: David Jacoby, Chelsea Stark-Jones, Trevor Rabone, and Jacob Cornett
Director of Photography: Neal Lett
Social: Alysha Tsuji, Keith Fujimoto, and Jomi Adeniran
In the following excerpt, Max asks Rich to break down the process that went into LeBron’s decision to sign with Philadelphia.
Max Kellerman: Part of the difficulty in the decision was there really were a lot of attractive options.
Rich Paul: How could it not be?
Kellerman: Right.
Paul: Home is home. Miami is Miami. It’s Pat, it’s—
Kellerman: And they have a good team.
Paul: And I think that everyone was at some point leading the race.
Kellerman: Well, if he goes to the Spurs, for example, that’s glomming on. Everyone’s going to say, “They were just in the Finals.”
Paul: Yeah.
Kellerman: There were certain teams you can’t go to. The Spurs, OKC, the Knicks, because you’re not going to get credit if you win.
Paul: Yeah. And you also, like I said before, those teams were very enticing, especially the Spurs and the Knicks. Those teams are very enticing. He and Shai was actually talking the other day at the time, 100.
Kellerman: Were those teams in the mix ever?
Paul: Who?
Kellerman: The Spurs, were they actually in the mix?
Paul: Yeah.
Kellerman: Until when?
Paul: Until they wasn’t. It’s really, when you say in the mix, it’s more so just like, I’m very close with Brian Wright and I know Bouna [Ndiaye] and Jeremy [Medjana], Wemby’s agents, so you have surface-level conversations and it’s more so about these guys are in a—it’s about respect. These guys are in a point in their career where they’re doing like this. No one wants to affect that by any stretch of the imagination, and regardless whether you won or not, if you have something good going, some things are meant to be left alone, like White Men Can’t Jump. That movie should never have been made again. And then it’s the same thing on the Knicks, because they just won.
Kellerman: And they have a chemistry thing.
Paul: They have a chemistry thing. Obviously, Jalen, he’s the king of New York, et cetera, and rightfully so. He earned that, and so when we had the conversation before, it’s not like to call LeBron if you—no, it’s not that. It’s saying, “Hey, man.”
Kellerman: Give him your blessing. It’s OK.
Paul: Yeah. Because anytime you go to somebody else’s neighborhood, you want to—
Kellerman: It’s the respectful thing to do.
Ultimately, Philadelphia makes a move and boom, now you got Jaylen Brown. Now hold on now. Now wait a minute now. This looks a lot different.
Paul: Yeah, you want to come respectful. And so all those things went through, and then ultimately, Philadelphia makes a move and boom, now you got Jaylen Brown. Now hold on now. Now wait a minute now. This looks a lot different. And then when you’re looking at—people don’t realize that we’ve also had a familiarity in Philly for a long time, starting way back when obviously me, Mitchell and Ness, Total Sports, my man Mike Black and Mike Harris back in those days, Big Rube, who I’ve known. And so the time we spent in Camden is all right there, and so there was not like it’s out of the norm. And then like I said, Tyrese and Bob and Mike and Josh and Blitz and David Adelman and Jamir. So when you break it all down, you’re not making this—one of my favorite people, my favorite people is on the Sixers, Ned Cohen and his wife, beautiful people.
And so when you start to look back of house with all these things too, there was no—back of house, everywhere was great. Back of house in Cleveland is great, back of house in Miami is great, back of house in Golden State is great, so again, how do you eliminate—
Kellerman: Differentiate.
Paul: Yeah.
Kellerman: So were the reports true when it seemed to be narrowed down to what was widely reported was Golden State, Cleveland, Miami, Philly. That’s what it got whittled down to. Were those reports true?
Paul: Those were true.
Kellerman: So for the last however many weeks, it’s been going back and forth among those four. Did it ever get to three or two?
Paul: No.
Kellerman: It was always those four?
Paul: Yeah. Minnesota, you always kept an eye there because Tim Connelly, and Tim Connelly’s on it. He’s on it, on it, on it. It’s just for whatever reason, you know. But …
But again, it was tough, man. It was tough. And I have to be in a position to where I got to be stealth. I can’t lean one way or the other way until I know he wants to really make a decision, and then he asks. He’s going to ask—
Kellerman: When did it start with the Lakers, 80 percent? Although you said the other day it wasn’t like that, but you told me it was.
Paul: No, that was misconstrued. …
That was less about that. It was more about in a vacuum, pretty much. Like he said, he said, “I was pretty much done.”
Kellerman: When did the scale start tipping toward Philly, like 55 percent? When was like, “You know what? I’m leaning toward Philly, or now it’s more and more and more.”
Paul: No, I think the eyeball came after obviously the trade, the Brown trade to even be really, really considered.
Kellerman: By the way, what a thing for the Celtics to have done. …
What a thing for the Celtics to have done! Their calculation was they can’t pay that much to Jaylen Brown, even though they’d already won a title together and Jaylen Brown was the Finals MVP. They shopped him around, they couldn’t get what they wanted for him. They wound up doing the trade in their division with Philly, and because of that trade, if that trade doesn’t happen, I’m assuming [LeBron is] not in Philly right now. Because—
Paul: No.
Kellerman: Because of that trade—
Paul: I mean, he actually loves Tyrese. It’s still very difficult.
Kellerman: Sure. Because of that trade, not only do they lose Jaylen Brown to a divisional rival, that rival gets LeBron James on top of it. So now we have to see how this shakes out for Boston, because this has a chance to be a disaster for Boston. By the way, I’m not saying it will be. Boston might be better next year if Paul George can somehow stay healthy.
Paul: Yeah, Boston is good.
Kellerman: Boston, they’re very well run. Tatum is a great player. All these kinds of things, but it’s about if Boston falls out of it and they become a perennial second-round playoff team and Philly wins a championship off this, woo.
This excerpt has been edited and condensed.
