The unlikely pairing of Max Kellerman and Rich Paul made their podcasting debut on Tuesday with the show titled “Game Over,” and boy was it something.
Naturally, a good chunk of the 90-minute conversation centered on the Lakers and LeBron James. Given the last notable public comments from Paul about the Lakers came when LeBron opted into his contract
and he issued a seemingly out-of-touch statement on monitoring the team.If you were hoping that time passed and the benefit of seeing the Lakers would
lead to a more rational, even-keeled approach from Paul, though, you’d be mistaken. Instead, he demonstrated a stunning amount of honest mixed with many takes for a man who is one of the most powerful agents in the sport.
There’s a lot he touched on, so let’s look at some of the most notable segments. And yes, there probably will be things left out.
LeBron James will remain in LA this season…probably
To the credit of Kellerman throughout this episode, he pressed Paul on a number of topics, including if LeBron would be with the Lakers the rest of this season. Paul gave a very matter-of-fact response to the question, indicating LeBron would stay in Los Angeles.
However…
As you can hear in the clip, there were discussions about the Knicks, primarily driven by Kellerman. Paul seemed pretty unwilling to engage in much “fantasy basketball,” as he called it, when it comes to LeBron potentially being a Knick.
The gist of it is that it appears that LeBron won’t be going anywhere this season, which seemed fairly obvious even before Paul’s comments given simply how difficult it would be to trade him under the new cap and apron rules.
Austin Reaves should be a sixth man
Again, given the context that Paul is a powerful agent, it’s crazy that he’s just out here firing off takes like he’s on Around the Horn.
When discussing the Lakers this season, Kellerman says that Austin Reaves should be in a Manu Ginobili role on a championship team, which Paul agrees with.
Kellerman: “Ideally, Austin Reaves…is Ginobili. In an ideal world…”
Paul: “On a championship team?”
Kellerman: “On a championship team, he’s the killer sixth man.”
Paul: “Yeah.”
In general, I think Manu’s name is thrown around a bit too freely considering he’s a Hall of Famer. He’s also a very special case.
That being said, this is a take you’d expect from someone like Gilbert Arenas, which is not the type of comparisons people should be striving for. This podcast came after the Lakers’ road trip, so his huge game against the Raptors was included when they determined he needed to come off the bench.
What are we doing here? Reaves is an All-Star. Hell, he’s making a run at All-NBA this year. Why are we talking about making him a sixth man?
The Lakers do not have enough to make the Western Conference Finals
As part of the above conversation on Reaves, Paul also just throws out there that the Lakers not only aren’t contenders, but he doesn’t think they have enough to make the Western Conference Finals.
Here’s a snippet of their lengthy conversation:
Paul: “I, personally, don’t think the Lakers are good enough to be contenders right now. Not right now.”
Kellerman: “When you say contenders, what do you mean?”
Paul: “I don’t think they have enough to get to the Western Conference Finals. I don’t think they have enough to contend from that perspective right now.”
Kellerman: “So, OKC is in a class by themselves…Put them aside for a second. You think the Lakers don’t fit in with the rest of the pack? They got the second-best record in the conference.”
Paul: “We’ve seen that before. It doesn’t mean anything.”
And here’s a four-minute clip of their conversation if you want to listen to more of it, though there isn’t much more to the logic.
Ultimately, Paul feels like the Lakers’ slow style won’t be hard to defend in the playoffs, an environment where the game always slows down. Is it true that they need more athletic players? Absolutely. Do they need more perimeter defense? Yes.
But can they make a Western Conference Finals with what they have? Unquestionably. No team is going to have the cerebral playmakers the Lakers will have in Luka and LeBron, not to mention anything of Austin “Manu” Reaves either.
They’re the second-best team in the Western Conference, have one of the best offenses in the NBA and are constantly improving this year. It feels wild to just write all that off presumably because they were the No. 2 seed last year and lost in the first round.
The Lakers should be more like the Heat
This last point is kind of convoluted and Paul really danced around things here, but he had a bit to say about the Lakers’ front office and how they should have a foundation of principles they believe in, akin to a franchise like the Heat.
“I’m saying when you are a team like the Lakers and others – I think there’s several teams in the league – sometimes when you are that attraction — you’re in LA, you’re the purple and gold, the history, the legacy, all of that – there’s a couple ways you can lean. But the details within the organization is what’s to be invested in to create these foundational routes that, no matter what…”
Now, that brings up an interesting question, which Kellerman rightly also retorts with. The Lakers have a decades-long reputation as a superstar-friendly organization. Paul represents one of the biggest superstars the game has ever had. Is Paul arguing that should go away?
Well, we don’t exactly get an answer because Paul then just kind of talked in circles about Pat Riley and the Heat and the Lakers without really committing to anything.
“LeBron was always a pro. Regardless what Miami was, there was never a thing of body fat, being out of shape, none of that. None of those things. Being on time? Nothing. I don’t want to misconstrue that because sometimes that can be misconstrued. But, going back to mindset, Pat Riley’s mindset, Pat Riley had a championship mindset so the foundation, ‘It don’t matter how upset you may be, we’re doing this thing this way.’
…
I would say, if there’s room to grow for the Lakers, it would be in that department. ‘Yes, we are the Lakers and let’s establish this culture. We’ve got 17 championships. Let’s establish this culture of being a championship organization and having these pillars.’ That don’t stop you from having great service and rolling out the carpet here and there and doing certain things that’s preferential. That’s fine. Everyone’s going to do that, by the way.”
This pretty clearly, and maybe fairly, reads as a criticism of the Lakers’ front office and how they’ve gone about their business in recent years. They’ve had plenty of moments when they’ve been a mess, none more so than when they traded for Russell Westbrook.
Do you know who championed that trade, though? LeBron. There’s a reason that was the last time there was a report about LeBron signing off on a trade.
The good news is that with Redick, the Lakers are developing an identity as a team. And under Mark Walter, hopefully they can develop an identity as a front office, too.
This was quite the ride of a podcast from Paul. It really had the vibe of so many other failed podcasts of Paul being someone who likes talking about sports and wanted to do so with a mic in his face. Unlike the Average Joe, Paul had the backing of The Ringer and a colleague like Kellerman to call upon.
But I can’t imagine this podcast exists in this capacity for very long. I’m not sure Paul can repeatedly come out and just fire off takes like this, particularly about the Lakers, and not get some pushback.
These weren’t even all of the takes he had, either. At one point, he said the Lakers need to have LeBron as the screener because Deandre Ayton and Jaxson Hayes aren’t good enough decision-makers out of the pick and roll. That’s not even paraphrasing, either.
He also had about a five-minute conversation on LeBron and whether he’s doing too much showboating versus playing efficiently, which was loosely and poorly tied into the Suns game when he was talking trash to the Suns bench and the Raptors game when his streak came to an end. None of it really made sense, went on for too long and felt bizarre considering who was delivering the message.
And, really, that sentence is a pretty good summary of the podcast as a whole.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
