LeBron James not ‘chasing the ring’ in free agency, agent Rich Paul says

Rich Paul, CEO of Klutch Sports Group and LeBron James’ longtime agent, continued his media tour Saturday with an appearance on SportsCenter. Unsurprisingly, Paul did not shed much light on where James will play next season — “I don’t know yet,” Paul said — but he did add, notably, that James is “not chasing the ring.”

James, an unrestricted free agent at 41, informed the Los Angeles Lakers on June 30 that he would not re-sign with the team this summer, ending his eight-season tenure with the historic franchise. At the time, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported that James decided to leave the Lakers in part because he wanted to continue playing “meaningful, competitive basketball.”

While Paul reiterated that James wants to have a chance to win, he made it clear that James is not desperate for a fifth championship. 

Here are Paul’s full comments:

“I think when you have a player like him, he unlocks something on one of all 30 teams. The team he chooses, I don’t know yet. There’s a seriousness that comes with this, there’s a competitiveness that comes. We know how hard it is to win championships. No roster, no organization is guaranteed to win a championship, but you do want to be competitive.

“You do want to have an opportunity come late April and early May, to compete at a high level and give yourself the best chance of winning. He’s not chasing the ring. You hear these things. Like, why does he have to chase? He got four. There’s nothing to chase. He’s not chasing a ghost or anything like that.

“But when you’ve worked this hard to position yourself the way you have, and you can actually decide what you want to do, who wouldn’t take advantage of that? So we’re not worried about nobody’s opinions or anything like that. He’s gonna make the best decision for himself. We’ll see what happens.”

James had been chasing ‘ghost who played in Chicago’

In 2016, James, after returning from a four-year, two-title stint with the Miami Heat, led his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers to the first championship in franchise history with a historic 3-1 comeback over the 73-win Golden State Warriors. Later that summer, at a high school camp, a prospect asked James what motivated him after accomplishing such a big goal. 

“My motivation,” James said, “is this ghost I’m chasing. The ghost played in Chicago.”

The ghost, of course, was Michael Jordan. Here’s more from James, via Lee Jenkins’ 2016 profile:

James finishes a full-court run with the high schoolers, his first time on the floor since the Finals, and lies on a training table to stretch his legs. “Why do I feel like I’m about to go into therapy?” he asks. Because you started talking about ghosts, he is told. 

“My career is totally different than Michael Jordan’s,” he says. “What I’ve gone through is totally different than what he went through. What he did was unbelievable, and I watched it unfold. I looked up to him so much. I think it’s cool to put myself in position to be one of those great players, but if I can ever put myself in position to be the greatest player, that would be something extraordinary.” 

James has since grabbed a fourth ring with the Lakers in 2020, but remains two shy of Jordan’s six. It’s easy to read Paul’s comment about “not chasing a ghost” as a sense of acceptance from the 41-year-old James that he’ll never match that total, just as he’ll never match Jordan’s perfect 6-0 Finals record. 

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At this point, there’s little James can do to meaningfully elevate his legacy. He’s a four-time champion, four-time Finals MVP, four-time MVP, and the league’s all-time leading scorer. Either you think he’s better than Jordan or you don’t. No one is going to change their mind if James wins a fifth ring as the third option on the New York Knicks or San Antonio Spurs. If anything, that type of championship and accusations of “ring chasing” may actually backfire. 

James is in his 40s and entering his 24th season. He’s not putting in all the work necessary to still perform at such a high level just to sign for any old team. But it’s clear from the franchises he’s been most heavily linked to — the Warriors, Heat, Cavaliers and Philadelphia 76ers — and Paul’s comments that trying to catch Jordan is no longer James’ sole motivation.