Rich Paul went on the Game Over podcast with Max Kellerman and pulled back the curtain on just how close LeBron James came to walking away for good. The agent told Kellerman that James’ performance in the Lakers’ first-round series against the Houston Rockets — a six-game battle where the Lakers blew a 3-0 lead before closing it out — gave James the evidence he needed that the tank wasn’t empty.
“I think if [the Lakers] somehow get swept or lose 4-1 in that [Rockets] series … it could be different,” Paul said, per the Beacon Journal. “I think it gave us another [perspective].”
Paul’s appearance on the podcast, first reported July 21, came during a weeks-long silence from the James camp that had the entire league chewing its nails. Paul swatted down reports that a decision was coming within 48 hours and made clear that no team had been told to hold cap space. “None of these people know anything,” Paul said. “Nobody knows nothing.”
The Rockets series gave James something to chew on. After the Lakers went up 3-0, Houston won Games 4 and 5 — the first time in James’ career that a team of his lost consecutive closeout games after building a 3-0 lead. A 41-year-old who’d looked gassed in those two losses then walked into Game 6 and outscored the Rockets by himself in the second quarter, 14-13, finishing with 28 points, eight assists, and seven rebounds in a 98-78 rout. JJ Redick, in his second year on the Lakers bench, called it “baffling” that James could still answer the bell like that.
The Lakers advanced to face Oklahoma City in the conference semifinals. Their season ended there, and James walked to the podium sounding like a man who’d played his last game.
“I don’t know. I don’t have the answer to that,” James said after the Lakers were eliminated, per Yahoo Sports. “It’s something I’ll sit down with my family, my wife, and my support group and kind of just talk through it and see what happens.”
He wasn’t bluffing about the uncertainty. On July 24, James announced he was signing with the Philadelphia 76ers on a two-year, $8 million deal — a number that smells like somebody playing for a ring, not a paycheck. In a social media post that day, James admitted he’d been “pretty sure I played my last game” when the season ended.
“I thought I was done when the season ended,” James wrote. “I wasn’t ready to announce it, and I knew I needed some time to really decide, but I was pretty sure I played my last game.”
What changed? Paul’s podcast comments point to the Rockets series as the pivot. James struggled mightily in Games 4 and 5, and a lesser player — or a player further from the fight — might have let those losses confirm that it was time. Instead, the Game 6 response, the 28-point closeout, the 42-15 career record in closeout games — it all told James something his body had been arguing against for two years. He still had it.
The Sixers already had Jaylen Brown in the fold from an earlier offseason trade. Adding James to that roster gives Philadelphia what many consider the most talented starting lineup in the league, and gives James one more shot at a fifth ring with a fourth franchise.
Paul, for his part, made clear the decision was never going to be rushed for anyone’s convenience — not the media’s, not Adam Silver’s, and certainly not for the talking heads who’d spent weeks guessing. “It’s a business choice that he’s making,” Paul said. “Why is it that an athlete has to rush his choice?”
For a guy who thought he was done, James took his sweet time deciding he wasn’t. And a six-game series against a bunch of kids from Houston turned out to be the thing that pulled him back.
Sources
- Awful Announcing — Rich Paul on Game Over podcast
- Yahoo Sports — LeBron undecided after playoff elimination
- Lakers Nation — LeBron joins 76ers, considered retirement
- NBA.com — Lakers-Rockets 2026 playoffs Game 6 takeaways
- Beacon Journal — Rich Paul on LeBron’s decision (original link, currently inaccessible)