This is part two of a two-part episode. The link to the first part will be in the description.
Now let’s look at the Anthony Davis timeline. Anthony Davis signs with LeBron James’s. Oh, actually, I’m just going to read the title of this article. And this is from Bleacher Report. The title of the article, Pelicans Anthony Davis signs with LeBron James Klutch Sports Agency. It says, LeBron James’s Klutch sports agency giving LeBron possession of Klutch sports. And so this was on September 23, 2018.
And then a few months later, on December 18, we have LeBron James making the comment that it would be amazing to play with Anthony Davis. He said that would be amazing. And then he said it would be incredible. And then a few days later, on December 22, we have a ridiculous back and forth. And I have, a link to the clip, and I will include this in the YouTube description. But in this back and forth, LeBron James tries to downplay making those comments, which, by the way, Brian Winhorst, who I mentioned, is a journalist who has covered LeBron extensively. Brian Winhorst said that LeBron went out of his way to make sure that those comments became public and were known. And I believe Winhorse said that he told, David, McNamee, I think that’s his name, that he told David to make sure to get that quote. So the point is, Winhorse said that LeBron knew exactly what he was doing with those comments.
But then we have this smug LeBron clip from a few days later, on December 22, where he’s asked about this by reporters. And then he tells the reporter, there’s a group of reporters around him. He tells the reporter to ask him if he would like to play with Kevin Durant. And then he answers, absolutely. And then he says, ask me if I’d like to play with Jimmy Butler. And then he says, say it right now. And he says, ask me about Kyrie, Giannis, Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Luca, and then he says, ask me. Then he says, come on, guys, this is not rocket science. This is not rocket science. These are great players. Absolutely. I would love to play with a lot of great players. That’s just who I am. People get caught up in bunches when they wish they could control what you say, and they can’t control me at all. And I play by the rules.
Here we have LeBron completely downplaying the fact that he has gone out of his way to say that playing with Anthony Davis would be amazing. And keep in mind the scenario here. We’re not talking about tampering, but we’re talking about, this is just a few months after Anthony Davis signs with Klutch sports, and there are already rumors about him. And then on June 15, less than a year after Anthony Davis signs with Klutch sports, he has traded to the Lakers. So we have the benefit of knowing what has happened in hindsight, right? We can go back and look and see how this played out. It played out exactly how people were expecting it to play out.
So again, the question is, is there a conflict of interest? And whose fault is it? If a conflict of interest exists and LeBron’s actions are, let’s say, they’re in violation of the NBA bylaws or the collective bargaining agreement, or against at least the spirit of those two documents, then we have to look at Adam Silver and the NBA. What are they doing to ensure that there is fairness and to ensure that the league is maintaining credibility and doing all that it can to make sure that there’s an even playing field.
And so I have one more page here, and it starts off, I want to start off with a CBS interview where the interviewer is talking to Rich Paul. And then they bring up the Anthony Davis situation, and it says, the center had a large contract, but he was tired of losing, so he fired his agent and he hired Rich Paul. And then Paul flouted NBA rules by publicly demanding a trade. And this got Davis a $50,000 fine, which I mentioned. The interview goes on to say the drama landed Paul on the cover of Sports Illustrated, which called him the most polarizing figure in the NBA.
Basically, this scenario is being posed to Rich Paul. And Rich Paul says, when it was someone that didn’t look like me, it was genius. It was why you get a power agent. But when it was me, I’m destroying the league. I mean, those things are absurd. Actually, they’re not absurd. And so what you have here is another attempt to shift what the facts are. The outrage is not because of Rich Paul being black. In fact, the NBA is more pro-diversity and inclusion than really any other entity I can think of. Off the top of my head, I don’t think the NBA was against there being a black sports agent and making moves. There’s criticism being drawn because people are looking at the situation and recognizing it for what it is, he says. I mean, those things are absurd. How is it absurd? I’m destroying the league? Well, I don’t think it’s necessarily you that’s destroying the league. I think other people would say LeBron is directly contributing to that. Rich Paul, of course, is a part of the story, but we know who Rich Paul’s friend is.
And then there’s a really interesting article from Chris Broussard, and it’s from several years ago. I think it’s over a decade ago now, but there’s a few interesting quotes from the article, and one is from Rich Paul. And it talks about this time where LeBron met Rich Paul. And Rich Paul is quoted as saying, if I don’t have that jersey on, we don’t have a conversation. Rich Paul was wearing a Warren Moon Houston Oilers throwback, and LeBron connects with him over that jersey. And one other excerpt from the article says that shortly after James was drafted, he called Paul one afternoon and asked for his Social Security number. And it says, Paul had no idea what James was up to. But about a week later, he received a check from King James, Inc. It was his first two weeks’ pay. There was no plan, certainly no business plan in place then, but James was confident they’d figure it out along the way. And LeBron is quoted as saying, I just felt like Rich was someone I wanted to grow with. He’d always kept it real with me, and I wanted him to be down with my team.
Keywords: my team. Does that sound like someone who is ready to seed over power to this new power sports agency? And does that sound like someone who is working on equal footing with someone else? Does that sound like someone who is going to stay separate from this new sports agent agency? One GM who has dealt with Paul said that there’s no specific training to be an agent. Most of the smart ones are more marketing guys than anything else. Is Rich sophisticated enough? Well, he’s sophisticated enough that he has. LeBron. Continuing to present-day Klutch Sports represents literally dozens of NBA players. And these may be in the past or they may be current clients, but the client list includes some notable names, including Lonzo Ball, Keldon Johnson, Draymond Green, De’Aaron Fox, Darius Garland, Tyrese Maxey, Dejounte Murray, Fred VanVleet, and Trae Young.
And one other note is that one client was Nerlens Noel, and he filed a lawsuit in November 2021 where he accused Rich Paul of doing, quote, unquote, little to no work in securing market value contracts, endorsement deals, and other financial considerations for Nerlens. And it says that Nerlens’s professional relationship began with Paul in the summer of 2017 when he was a restricted free agent. The Mavericks had made Noel a $70 million offer, which. And that offer was when he was represented by a previous agent, which was Happy Walters. But then Noel said he was recruited by Paul that summer. And then Paul told Noel that if he terminated his relationship with Happy Walters and signed with him instead, Paul would get him that Max deal. And as a part of this, Paul advised Noel that he ceased negotiations with the Mavericks, sign a single-year qualifying offer, and seek a max deal on the free-agent market the following season.
And so that is taken from the lawsuit. But this leads to another question. Is Rich Paul even capable of being an NBA agent? I don’t even know. Is he still, an active NBA agent, or is it that other agents now brought in under Klutch Sports are taking care of those agent duties? But that’s really the side point. The main point here is that a real or apparent conflict of interest exists. For all of the reasons I’ve covered, this is not a secret. It’s just not covered. We don’t see a lot of coverage on this. And when the coverage is there, it is very light. It doesn’t go in depth into these specifics that are very, very important. But here we have Klutch Sports. They are still looming large in the NBA. And I think there are a number of people, teams, sports agents, general managers, players, who are waiting for any type of response from Adam Silver. As I mentioned, the NBA reportedly investigated this, but the only finding was that LeBron didn’t have a financial interest. Of course, he wouldn’t.