The Right Time with Bomani Jones - LeBron's Bizarre relationship with the Lakers, how will his time in Los Angeles end? | 11.19

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Bomani Jones is joined by Yaron Weitzman, author of "A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams and Drama of the LeBron Lakers" They explore the challenges of writing the book, the dynamics within the Lakers organization, and the impact of key figures like Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka. The conversation delves into LeBron's leadership style, the tensions with Russell Westbrook, and the implications of the Luka Doncic trade. They also touch on the significance of Bronny James and what the future holds for LeBron and the Lakers. 01:00 - The Challenges of Access and Reporting the Book 08:00 - Magic Johnson & Rob Pelinka's Leadership Dynamics 14:30 - LeBron's Impact on the Lakers 20:27 - LeBron - Westbrook Tension 31:00 - Luka Doncic Trade reaction 41:03 - Bronny's Impact and the Lakers' Concessions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is that time a week where we have a guest join us. He is the author of a Hollywood ending, the dreams and drama of the LeBron Lakers. His name is your own Weitzman. But man, how are you? I'm good, Bumani. Thanks for having me. No man, I appreciate you joining us.

For people to check the book out. I'm sorry we got to it so late. I was like, we can get you all when the book comes out. Then I looked up in the book and come out a month ago. I read the book a couple of months ago. I read it before it came out. It is a really, really good book. I recommend to people go check this out.

Now, I understand the answer to this may seem obvious, but what drew you to wanting to write this book? So there are a few answers. I'll give you have a smart audience. I'll give you guys, you know, I'll give an honest answer here. which I don't always give. Writing a book is a commercial enterprise, right?

So you have to pick something that you think is going to sell. Obviously, LeBron and the Lakers are that. So I always want to lead off with that because I don't want to make it seem like I'm just here for the art of it. That being said, you have to be willing to dive in. I spent three years on this, right? So you've got to be willing to work on this. And it just felt like I love covering the behind-the-scenes stuff

and sort of unpacking the way I describe it is like the things that happen behind the scenes that we don't see that impact what happens on the court that we do see. and it just felt like this was so ripe for this. This LeBron Lakers merger. And I felt like it hadn't been fully unpacked in a proper way either. And I just wanted to dive in on it.

Now, you talk to a zillion people in the course of doing this, but how hard was it for you to get in? Because you're not a Lakers beat writer. Like you're not native to the ecosystem. So how hard was it for you to be able to get the necessary, I don't think access is the right word.

There is some access, obviously. But this is not, hey, guys, be nice to me as much as it seems like you got is done. Yeah, no, we can talk about it. The Lakers, I got the opposite of access. Like, LeBron doesn't do the, he doesn't do long form interviews really anymore at all, which I have no problem with. That's fine. I assume there'll be 19 Netflix documentaries that come out after he all produced by LeBron. Yeah. Correct. Exactly. Exactly. And honestly, like, power to him, whatever. You know, God bless. He already has cameras following him around. I think some people

may be noticed. The Lakers also were not fans of this. I'm sure we can talk about that. But for me, you know, the good thing is we start looking into is, like, what's helpful is that the Lakers, I knew I've had a lot of people go in that of that building. And as a journalist, former employees are really helpful. It doesn't mean you're going to take everything they say too hard. Like, you have to verify whatever. But I kind of like to envision almost like a circle and you start on the outside and you get information that you leverage that and get closer and closer and closer and closer. And like, I don't know, Bomani, my thing is I just call everybody. I reach out to everybody.

It's a numbers game. So if you figure you're going to get, you know, 8% success rate, so you reach out to 1,000 people, right? And you get some success. And then you get information, the more you get, the more you can bring up to other people. You go back to people two years later. They maybe forgot that they said no originally. They don't remember that. And they say yes later on.

And just so like the difficulty is it's a grind. But people, it's interesting. People on the NBA like sharing their thoughts on the Lakers and LeBron too. I think a lot of them are just like us, right? They have thoughts and they want to share it. And just so we're clear, you sent a copy of the manuscript to the Lakers so they could offer factual corrections at any point. And they responded by hiring a defamation lawyer. Yeah, so I sent not a copy manuscript, a fact-checking document.

I'll go back. But even before that, they hired a defamation lawyer before I even sent them anything. And to this day, I don't know why, right? So I'll go to the story. So when you start with the book, you reach out to the principals. So LeBron separate. Let's talk about him. We talk about him later.

Jeannie Bus. I reached out of Jeannie Bus. I actually met with her twice off the record. We met once in a Las Vegas during Summer League in a lobby bar and once in an L.A. Diner. It's off the record. I usually wouldn't share that, but I was transcribing an interview like two years later. And I heard her talking about these meetings that she was talking to this writer who had told her this.

So I was like, okay, I guess we're cool. I guess we can share these. And we were fine. I gave a silly example. I live in New Rochelle. she was very excited to hear that because the Dick Van Dyke show is from New Rochelle. That meant a lot to Jeannie Bus, which is great too. Once I'm jogging, I'm going for a jog.

There was a point where I was going to pretend that was going to be a jogger. It didn't last. And I passed the Dick Van Dyke Street, send her a picture, and she's all excited. So, like, things were fine. And then two years later, like the day, it was the day of the 2024 finals, the Celtics finals. I was there covering it. It's quintently, and it's funny. It's the day that Woj broke the news of the Dan Hurley pursuit that the Lakers

are going after Dan Hurley. And I get an email saying from the desk of Marty Singer, I represent the Lakers, and I Google this guy, and he's a famous defamation lawyer. And that, you know, it was sort of, I describe it as like not quite a cease and desist, but a, you know, we're watching you type of thing. So from there, I cut off communication.

Then I send them fact checking for people who don't know the way fact checking works, so you send the negatives, I call it. You know, I don't need to send. If I have an owner saying that Jeannie Bus is a great owner, I don't need her to respond to that. That's great. So you send the negatives. I'm always sympathetic to the idea that when you receive that document,

it's probably overwhelming. You probably think it's a hippie. My answer is always, let's get on the phone and talk. Do that with other people. If there's anything, context missing, facts wrong. We're not published yet. I want to hear it. And instead, I get this letter from this lawyer Marty Singer saying, I think this is almost verbatim. Make no mistake, many people threaten to sue and don't have the means to do so. We have, we will and have the means and we'll sue you. Yeah. Now, it is worth noting, maybe they have the means, but they're notoriously cheap. Um, yes. And they're very sensitive about that accusation as well.

They are, but everybody knows it. Right. Yeah. Like it was, this is, this is, it's a, it's a family business. The fair question I think to ask is actually in line with what you're talking about. Are they cheaper? Do they just not really have that much money? Because all their money really is Lakers money, which is different than we'll call it Stan Cronkey, who married into Walmart money and has money of his own, for example, right? For, for sure. Um, I, I know people say that They get paid, the way it works, like they get paid, I don't know, the dividend. Like off the trust, the team was owned by a trust basically. The bus children make good money off of that, like yearly.

You know, we're millions here. Yeah. Lakers also have, and I know the RSN market is failing, but they have the largest regional, local TV deal in the NBA. So, like, I believe that the, this cost spending, the, you know, act cheap, whatever, I'll say cheap. I believe them being cheap at certain points is a choice they make and not necessarily something because, like, we can't afford it. All right. So you get in, you know, clearly, I think I think the part that was funny to me, though, about them sending that letter is that when winning time was on HBO, for example, Jerry West, for example, did not like the way that he

was portrayed. The Lakers didn't really mind that much. Like, if that felt like that was a bit more of all publicity is good publicity. I guess this is a little different because the story was contemporaneous and I'll be honest, nobody in this book looks good. Like, not, not one person came out of that like, wow, I like that person a little bit more than I did before I started reading it. Is that, is that job well done by me? I guess I should put that in the book jacket, right? Well, you know, well, it's not, it's certainly not, it's certainly not job bad done, right? Yeah, right. But it is kind of interesting. Now, for example, I've read the Jeff Perlman books about the Lakers. So I've already got like kind of the full gamut of the Magic Johnson experience.

And what is interesting in this obviously is this is probably the most thorough reporting we've seen on the Magic and Rob Polinka era. And I came out of that like, wow, nobody here is actually a good guy. But that's the start of the LeBron era is Magic Johnson, who's definitely the president of the operation, it seemed very clearly to be in charge, just not always. ways there that much with an underling who is Rob Polenko who quite honestly does not seem to respect Magic Johnson in the way that most of us would expect Magic Johnson to be respected. I think that's fair. The way I described the magic, the way I described magic and I think where you're right is like he wanted it both ways. That's kind of how I bring it up. So he wanted to be

president and I'm running everything, but he's also disappearing for large chunks of time. or he also doesn't have a desk in his office or in the book we have, people would hear family feud music coming from his office as they're walking by. But then he's doing that while he's chewing out Luke Walton after preseason losses, right?

And there you go, cursing out Zubach and leading to that trade. Like, you can't have it both ways, right? You can't be the hands-on guy and also disappearing. Like, if he wanted to just be Magic Johnson and ceremonial guy, I think that would have worked,

but he wanted the other part. And then they bring in Rob Polinka who's basically miscast in that role, right? The idea he's brought in there as, okay, magic's not hands-on. Rob Polinka is the agent who knows the cap and is involved in and everything and can be the hands-on guy and he made sour-cat mistakes early on. Like, these aren't even, I'd love to give myself all the credit on this. Like a lot of this, that is not even original reporting.

That's stuff we knew in real time, right? So that's the guy who comes in and is told, that's the guy who comes in and supposed to advise Magic on how to kind of work the minutiae of being an MBA executive. And he's not there either. And it goes to the point, Jeannie Bus is hiring people she trusted, right? That's what it was. We're hiring people we trusted. Yeah.

I got a friend who's been telling me this for almost 20 years. Listen to this show right now. And he's just like, there's magic and there's Irvin. And Irvin is a killer, right? And this has a lot, you know, in this of the Irvin element of it. And it is a little weird, not weird, but magic in public is not just big smile magic. Magic pulled up to the seaport when I worked at the airport. when I worked at ESPN once.

And Magic knew my whole bio. Magic knew Pablo's. That's why. I don't know if Magic knew we even worked in that building. I think it's after he had just left the Lakers and he was going and doing his kind of PR tour about it. Magic made, I couldn't believe how much Magic knew about me. He was like, all right, now you're here, now you're in Miami,

you were in North Carolina before that, right? What? Like, did somebody give you a card with all of this about everybody that might be in the building? but he's so good in that way. I can't imagine Magic Johnson cussing me out the way that Magic Johnson was cussing people out in this book. It's like a presidential candidate the way you're describing it, right?

Like somebody whispering in his ears. It is, I think I even have, I think I have them, someone, that's funny someone texted you that. I think I have, there's magic and there's Irvin line in the book too from someone there. This is, yeah, this is a thing. It's very, it's wild. And then what happens is if you're working there,

you become even more angry about the fact that, wait, like everyone else is saying this guy is this guy when I know he's not. It's not just Luke Walton. Like there's a line. You know, he's told, it's supposed to be an all hands meeting early on. It's supposed to be rah, rah, and inspirational. And he goes with, we have a thousand resumes on my desk. I can fire any one of you at any point.

And this isn't like, we're not talking about Luke Walton or guys making, you know, million dollars a year high level. These are mid-level staffers who are making, I don't know, 50, whatever it is, right? These are guys who are terrified. And this, this is, like I say, a magic Johnson that I think for even, I would imagine even to a degree for Jeannie Bust that when he gets there, it's like, hey, this isn't what we thought we were getting.

There's Rob Polinka who, I mean, it sounds like he'd be lying. And what I mean by that is, not that he is like a pathological liar where you can't believe anything, but he says things that are kind of like, huh, is that right?

He, uh, I listen, the best, the best, like, way I can characterize it. I have this in the book, a GM, a former GM, we used to work with Rob when Rob was an agent, said there are some agents who you could agree with a deal to a deal with in April at the Combine and know you were good till July, free agency. Rob was not one of those. Like to me, that summarizes it.

And it's wild. The part that's fascinating, and it probably shows just knowing how to manage up and where the power sources are, it's fascinating that somebody could survive so long in such a closed ecosystem, small world like the NBA, with that reputation. Yeah. Rob was representing Carlos Boozer when they got over on that blind man. Yep.

For those of you who don't know this story. And look, I might have done the same thing just to be clear. It was a real, like the situation, a little trickier than he gets credit for being. But the Cavs did not have to let Carlos Boozer out of his contract when they did. He was the second round pick and he was wildly underpaid. And so they offered him maybe a little bit of a below market value contract, but they were getting some money in his pocket immediately.

And they were like, cool, do it. And then they let Boozer out of the contract. And then the Utah Jazz jumped really high. And Polinka and Bozer went and took that contract. I believe Palinka's boss, what I think was armed telling him at the time was like, hey, man, we can't take these commissions. We can't have this on our name. But it had to be told to Rob, apparently, that we can't do this. 100%. 100%. And the part that like, because I remember talking to people about this and saying, what's the difference between this and all the stuff we see agents do anyway. And the way it was explained to me is that it's a very clear order of operations.

the only way Boozer could get that deal from Utah was by lying to Cleveland, right? That was it. Cleveland did not have to let him out of the contract. It wasn't like you see a free agency. We see this happen all the time, right? You have the moratorium where in July 1st you agree and then 10 days later something happens. This was we are agreeing. We have a deal. Not ridden, but we have a deal.

We are taking this deal. Now you'll let us out. Oh, wait, never mind. Now that we're free, we'll take that money. And again, talking about how Rob Polink is himself. His whole thing he's told people is like, he's told when he retells that story, he tells it is almost, not that he's the hero, but that he made a tough decision

and he was willing to give up the commission, which was a million dot, whatever it was, to terminate the contract with Carlos Boozer. But the way, I mean, what actually happened is Arndelam told Rob, no, this is what has to happen. And it just shows you how people tell the stories they tell about themselves, you know, to make themselves feel better

or look like the heroes in these things. Yeah, and add to this entire situation, LeBron James, right? Like I set that up to say that this is 2018 when LeBron comes. Magic has been there for a year and change. And this is the world that he's got. Polinka has been the guy under him.

And there's a lot of backbiting going on with them. And now we add LeBron, who one of the big reasons why he comes to play for the Lakers, is he wanted to play for a glamour franchise. And truly the NBA only really has two of them, right? He wanted to play for a big brand franchise. And he got there to play for the big brand franchise. But at least in my reading of things, part of what makes it interesting is, he wanted to play for the big brand franchise

while also kind of believing that he was at least as big if not bigger than said brand, which for that brand is different. They're not used to a guy who approaches it like that. I think that's exactly right. Honestly, I've thought about this doing sort of talking about the book recently and I probably should have hammered this more in the book. We all think of the Lakers as being this team.

You know, they always get the, they always get the superstars. They all come out there. None of them were fully formed icons the way LeBron was when he joined. like Shaq and Kobe and even Korea years, like they were different. LeBron was a fully formed icon when he joined the Lakers. And that's different for them, right? That's different than from the idea of we just get the superstar.

And yeah, I think that's kind of that what you just described is like that was the foundational tension, right, of what we saw. Like who's in charge? Who's running things? Like who matters more? How does this all play out? And how do we move forward from here? And from that, you sort of get, you lead to the lack of, a lack of trust between the parties, right?

Over this, in the fighting leads to a lack of trust. And then from there, you see poor decisions. Yeah, you know, and so the Lakers, you know, the infamous, I ain't going to be there, Maddie Johnson Press Conference where, you know, he's, so he's basically out of here. One year into the LeBron Tim year, 10 year, um, Palinka is promoted. What we then see is something interesting. And we've seen agencies.

kind of have their run of a franchise. Obvious example being the Knicks with CAA. But CAA is a big giant agency sort of situation. Clutch is Rich Paul slash LeBron their shop. And in that way, it felt like LeBron, once they get to the place of making the Anthony Davis trade, they have control of a franchise in a way that no player really had had control of a franchise. And again, a franchise that sees itself as something bigger than this.

Yeah. But can I tell you the most interesting? I'm curious your read on it. Like what I find most interesting is I, that all happened. But then the same point you've seen the pushback, like the Lakers wouldn't hire Ty Loo, which maybe now it's, you know, but they wouldn't hire. And Tyloo, to me it's such a great example because Tyloo, that's not like, I use a bad name. That's not like LeBron wants Damon Jones to be the head coach of the team, right? Like some guy who's not qualified, just my buddy. Ty Lou was completely qualified. Former Laker, he was perfect for the job.

I probably would have succeeded there. And they wouldn't hire him, in part because they're a little wary of make it seem like we're giving over everything to LeBron. And to me, I think that's like a perfect example of how these tensions popped up. And really early, that's going into year two. That's after LeBron's first year there. That's not post-Rustlewark, none of this stuff. That's year two.

And they want to do it. So I think what Clutch was really good at is, they're really good at leveraging the power they had by having LeBron there and forcing the Lakers hand at a certain point. Like I have a thing in the book, again, sort of infamous time about the Kauai Leonard negotiations when he wants to come to L.A. And basically because Rob Polinka messes up the salary cap and screws up the Anthony Davis trade. The Lakers, he needs Anthony Davis to waive a trade kicker.

Clutch says, fine, we'll agree to this. But you have to promise that you're going to sign KCP if you don't get Kauai. Like that's what they were really good at, right? leveraging the points there. But again, I go back to the Tai Luth thing. That to me is so interesting that the Lakers and Jeannie and them were so wary of making it seem like this is LeBron's operation. Do you really think, though, that there was any chance Kauai was actually going to go to the Lakers? Because it's hard for me to believe that 2019 Kauai Linder, quite possibly the best player in the NBA,

was going to go play for, there would be no other way to see it. It would be LeBron's seat. No, I don't. I can tie it in Clutch. They didn't think so either. That's why they were cool agreeing to that. Yeah, we'll wave the trade kicker. And if you have max salary, okay, yeah, sign Kauai, whatever.

Cool. But we know that's not going to happen. So then you always KCP, right? So I agree with you and Clutch also agree. But this did turn out that for this tenure that LeBron's had there, which is now seven going on eight years. This is as long as he has been with any team for one run. This would be as long as the first run that he had in Cleveland.

they won this championship in year two. It just also happens to be the strangest year of years that has ever been, right? It is the bubble year. Nobody gets to really enjoy the championship other than the players and the organization. But did the organization even really enjoy it, like under the circumstances? No. I think there was some, if you want a funny video, go watch and you'll see what. Go watch the Lakers celebrating the title on the court.

And you could see, as LeBron's being announced, MVP, you could see Rob Polinka behind him, like, smiling, a giddy smile and chanting King James, King James. It's a really weird video, but you can kind of see the elation of, you know, we're all proving everyone wrong, right? Jeannie, this validated her. She needed that title. It's underrated. You know, if LeBron doesn't win that title, her era, her reign, which is not closing, right, it's looked at completely differently.

And honestly, it hasn't been great, right? But the title kind of gives her some cover. Rob Palenka, too. So do they enjoy it? No. I think there was a real level of vindication and I hate this, but you know, proving the haters wrong and that we're doing this, especially from the front office and specifically Rob and Jeannie. Now, this is the last thing I want to get to before we get to our break. And this has been gotten around, which is the tension between LeBron and Russell Westbrook. And it is interesting because LeBron is the one who wanted Westbrook, even though there was evidence that Westbrook. might have been finished. And the tricky thing, of course, of Russell Westbrook is that he is exceedingly responsible and he's going to play really, really hard and do all the little things that you want somebody to do. And then he gets on the court and then anything is possible.

But Russell Westbrook identified fairly quickly that LeBron James was not his kind of guy. And was it, did the Will Smith moment really did it? Like, for example, Westbrook was a guy who found it weird than LeBron pretended to read these books, right? Like, he's one of the guys that was on that list. But the story being, Will Smith comes to talk to the team. And for whatever reason, Anthony Davis and LeBron did not want to hear Will Smith speak. And so Westbrook is there like, hey, this is what the team does. We're going to do the thing.

And then finally has somebody like, yo, y'all got to go get them. They go get LeBron and Anthony Davis. They finally come in. Will Smith gives the message. LeBron's in there asking questions. And then afterwards, talks to the media, just glowing. about the time they spent with Will Smith. Meanwhile, Russell Westbrook is seething.

Yeah, because it all just feels so funny. Yep. By the way, it's also the idea. At the point is it's six months after the slap, right, from Will Smith, which, again, it doesn't matter, but I just find it even makes it the whole make, makes the whole anecdote, um, funnier. Yeah, I think, uh, yeah, Westbrook, was that the, I don't know what moment put him over LeBron, right?

But that was certainly, I mean, I listen, I could, I have. He told a teammate, I hate that fake bleep, right? And you can see the picture. You could see a picture of him. I mean, I love it. The Lakers posted a picture on social media of the team with Will Smith. And you could see Westbrook not smiling. At the time, it's got a little pickup, and people just assumed it was Russ being Russ.

But Westbrook knew this was off the off season that previous summer or that summer a few months earlier. Kyrie, that's when the Nets were getting off of Kyrie. LeBron's telling everyone I want Kyrie. What does that mean? The only way the Lakers can get Kyrie is by trading what Russell Westbrook, you know, salary-cap-wise. Westbrook knows what that means. So LeBron's saying, let Russ be Russ while saying that. Now, to be fair, I found it really interesting.

I'm curious, your thought on this. I need to get to a break. Like, I find it interesting that people, the idea that LeBron being phony is the reason that the Westbrook experience went poorly in L.A. I don't think is necessarily correct. And it's been interesting to see people latch on since the story came out, being like, yeah, Team Russ,

get LeBron, get LeBron, get him. LeBron's a phony. Russ is right, which is all true. Russ was responsible for his, Russ was awful, awful those two years. They've been pretty bad since, so yeah. Yeah, no, I thought, I mean, the reason it didn't go well is that Russell Westbrook did not play well.

Yeah. What I did think was interesting and what I took from the book about this is the impression of LeBron that I had always had myself was someone who was a little more conscientious when it came to leadership and the recognition that sometimes you just got to do stuff like this, right? Like the idea that there's a part in the book. great anecdote, for example, about how every year the Lakers go to Nevada and Vegas and they play this game, they do this charity event for veterans, not NBA veterans, veterans, veterans. They, you know,

thank you for your service veterans. And LeBron never actually got there to the event because Ohio State was playing a September football game. These are not things that I would have expected to have been the case. The phrase that sort of landed on, he's a frontrunner. I think it's a better front runner to him that when he thinks the team is good and has a legit shot at winning a championship, he can do that leadership. And he's really in, like 2019 in the bubble. There are all these examples, even before the bubble, right, when he thought the team can win. When he doesn't, that's when you see the passive aggressive stuff, not showing up, the sulking.

I mean, all I have a exact thoughts. Coach is saying, you know, teammates see that when he's upset or the drop shoulders, all that stuff. So, again, it's probably not a great scale. But the kind of frontrunner is what I've landed on in terms of how to describe him a little bit. All right, so we got some more LeBron's stuff and obviously the Lugidantia's trade to talk to your own whitesman about coming up next. What if you could consistently find whatever it is you're looking for right away? We're talking everything from parking spots to holiday gifts to jackets or jeans that fit perfectly. Imagine how much time you'd save.

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Check out his book about the LeBron era of the Los Angeles Lakers. And in some total with LeBron, I think what has been interesting to me about this, and I'm curious your read, and I've said this for a while, is that LeBron was in a little bit of a trickier situation taking, you know, going there that I think he realized is that much of his career in the eyes of basketball fans, he has been positioned opposite of Kobe Bryant. And so for Kobe's entire career, he was opposite of everybody in a way that he didn't really get to be on the positive side of one of those things until he was an elder statesman. But are you a LeBron guy or a Kobe guy extended for a long time? And he showed up to play for a

franchise with a fan base and a front office full of Kobe stands. Right. Like that if you love the Lakers, you love Kobe. He was their guy. And they have been kind of hating on you for all of this time. And now he jumps into this team and you don't get the feeling that he has the same affect for being a Laker that Kobe had, for example. This felt more transactional for him. And that seems to be kind of a consistent theme through the book about his time there. I think you nailed it.

I completely agree. I've heard you talk about this, right? That to your point, it's Kobe v. LeBron. And anytime you argue about two guys, what do you end up doing? You end up arguing against the guy, right? As opposed to four-year guy. And to your point, that just meant that Lakers fans

who are Kobe obsessed, Kobe Stan is a perfect word, are spending all this time before LeBron gets there, arguing against LeBron. And it's not even just in terms of on court. Like, their mentalities are completely different. And Kobe was confused. I have this in the book. Kobe was confused by LeBron. Just on the court, Kobe's going to shoot over four guys, right?

Last shot. LeBron's going to pass the open man. Kobe would never be friends with guys on other teams. LeBron obviously is. Kobe wasn't into the off-court businesses until after he retired. LeBron, that's something he's setting up since he was. was 24. Like, they were just very different. Kobe was aware they were pitted against each other. That bothered him. So then LeBron is then the enemy. Kobe fans pick that up. And all of a sudden,

you're dropping this guy who's the enemy into the city and just say, oh, now love him. And it was all, I mean, remember there were murals defaced? Like, it was really weird. I don't think LeBron certainly was not ready for that, did I expect it. It's, the Lakers might be the only franchise in the NBA where LeBron is, where LeBron would join. And he's not, uh, immediately embraced as the savior. There's no other franchise, would that be the case. Yeah, and this is, this gets us through, like, the post-championship part, like, to me, it almost feels a bit like a blur in real life.

Like, it's now been, it'll be six years. I guess in November, I guess that's where, whenever to hell they actually wrap that up in the bubble. But it'll be six seasons at the end of this year since that took place. One thing that did happen in between, I think, is the biggest thing that jumps out for people is LeBron broke the scoring record, which again, weird vibes on that one. In part, as you talk about, he's at cameras following him around for years now. That was a made for television event.

I'm going to break the scoring record tonight, and I'm going to go so hard on it, I'm going to injure myself, and I'm not going to play again for weeks, which honestly does not get discussed that much. But that's kind of the high point of this partnership that they've had. They made the conference finals that year. we move on and then go a couple years and you wake up one morning and Luca Donchich is now being traded to the Lakers

without this being run by LeBron James at least as far as we could tell. In your reporting, did it seem at all as though Clutch was in on this or did they find out when we did? No, I could tell you, I mean, we'll get to the group chat. So I live in New York. Luca trade happens.

The Lakers are in New York that night. So I'm going to the game at the garden. After the game, what happens? People don't know. The Lakers usually play in New York the Knicks on a Saturday night, all family, friends, agents, everyone comes. The hallways are filled with everyone. After the game, Rich Paul is hanging out in the hallway.

So Savannah James, other clutch people, you know, laughing, talking reporters, very much not an agent who's aware that this seismic deal is going to happen. Or he's the greatest actor ever, right? But it's this, it would be, or malpractice because he's not on his phone. Trade happens. And actually, look, we have the group chat, right? So the Shams tweet goes through, I don't know, let's say it's midnight, Eastern or whatever. and the way it goes down is brawny takes the shams tweet puts it in the lakers players group chat

asks is this real uh anthie davis goes did these blank words just trade me lebron writes w tf and an emoji and anthie davis says good luck fellows and leave the chat now to be clear like i don't know it's it's a little unclear where rob polinka called anthie davis like he might have found out been on a speaker phone while this chat's going on i don't know so i don't know if he literally found out from the brawny tweet but we're talking about a five in a window here right So, yeah, they very much were not involved. And the pivot started with the JJ Redick hiring. It's one of the most interesting and funny press conferences to look back on in hindsight is when JJ Redick is hired.

And Rob Polick is talking about it's a new salary cap. We need to do player development. We need to lean into this new approach. They're talking about a player development app that they're going to build, which I guess never happened. I don't know. But like they're basically no longer the Lakers. They sound like the Oklahoma City Thunder, right? They're just a whole different team very much pivoting away.

You can tell, they're pivoting away from LeBron. Luca falls into their lap. Suddenly they're all about superstars again, right? But Clutch, like, they've been, they started pivoting away from LeBron and Clutch around, whatever that was, 2024, whatever the year that was. So the idea that JJ's a pivot is interesting because, you know, to the late person, JJ was a LeBron move. Yeah, I know.

Everyone thinks that. And it's just not, you know, I don't think it's true. I mean, I talk to people, you might, Jason Gallagher told me this. He was a producer from, produces the show of Mind the Game. The way he described it is like, he never heard them talk about it. And he even said to me, we have mics on them even when, I guess he could be lying, I don't think he is. He's like, we had mics on them even when they're not on air.

And that whole whatever, those four months when we all kind of, the Lakers looking for a coach and doing the podcast, he's like, I asked my guys in the room, like, do you ever hear anything like this? And they said, no, never heard them discussing it. So, I mean, LeBron was in the loop. He was not in a loop. And Clutch was annoyed about not being the loop on the coaching search. Like, they were not part of it.

was the most interesting part to me, and it kind of speaks to the lack of trust between the two sides and where they ended up, is there were clutched people who thought that like Polinka and the Lakers were 4D Chessing, the Reddic hire that, oh, we're going to hire him. If it doesn't go well, people will assume that's LeBron wanted that guy and it's on him. And like whether it's true or not is irrelevant, it's the idea that this is how they're thinking. This is like how one side thinks the other side is approaching this big decision. So this consistent lack of trust, which is, you know, a theme throughout this relationship. I'm curious with the people

with whom you spoke felt about this because I mean, this is a league generally speaking where especially a superstar like LeBron, like you're going to embrace that person, right? Like that's the guy that runs this. But these are the three franchises that LeBron has played for and that trust has not existed with any of those franchises. Interesting.

I don't know exactly what I'm going for here. But like I don't blame him for not trusting the calves and Dan Gilbert, especially like the second. time, but that one made sense. And maybe it's almost like a PTSD for him because he had no trust in what was going on with Miami. And Miami was like, he's going to love us. We're not them. And he chucked the deuce on them and they couldn't believe that. And then with the Lakers, I think, is LeBron that his I'm a businessman outlook? Does it kind of make it impossible for there to be that kind of relationship between the sides? It's not interesting I haven't thought about like that.

He'd probably right. And it's just, I think in the NBA, it's all all businesses, but the NBA, It's a lot of fighting over who gets the credit and who gets the narrative, right? A lot of fighting over narratives, as I'm thinking is that loud. I think that might be the answer, right? A lot of fighting over the narrative. And LeBron, the narrative follows him. And I think we see sort of this idea that, like, we don't want him getting the credit. And I don't think it's necessarily an active decision, right?

Like, I don't think Jeannie Buss and Rob Polinkar, especially at the beginning, are necessarily being like, yeah, we want LeBron here. but we're going to say, you know, we don't want them to get any credit if we win. We want to make sure we get the credit. It's not like that. It's sort of a small little by little. I imagine some of it of how stories get covered where LeBron is really good. Him and his media team are really good at getting their side of things out there

and getting their perspective of things. And making sure media here, they talk to the right media. They know they're in touch with the people they need to be in touch with about helping put a narrative out there. And I would imagine that if you're on the other side of that, that can be frustrating. Now, the Luca trade is made, and I think LeBron did a very good job of conveying that he was on board with this and that he looked forward to the idea of having somebody like Luca on the team. But from your reporting and the people with whom you spoke, how did he really feel about the fact that they made this trade? Forget about whether he knew about it, just the trade itself. I think my read on it is I think the trade itself, like from a basketball.

football standpoint and Luca, he respects and appreciates, right? I think that's not an issue. We see, when you talk where he's at now in the off-season where he's at now. But remember, he's the one, he recruited, he wanted Luca, when he was going to do a team, LeBron brand shoe thing. He said Luca was one of the guys he wanted to build around. So there's sort of, Luca's sort of a basketball player's basketball player. Kind of similar to LeBron, at least an offense in terms of the chess master and how he sees the court. I think any frustration would be just not being in the loop and understanding that the Lakers are pivoting.

And where we saw that, no matter what they say, we still have frustration boil over in the offseason. He did not get a contract extension. He did not. They could argue all they want about they didn't care and being on expiring, MNTS power. It has yet to be explained to me. LeBron's on an expiring deal for the first time in his career, right?

You cannot tell me, you will not convince me any way how that's beneficial and how he'd rather that than getting a one plus one. a player option. Like there's no way there you has yet to be explained to me how having an expiring deal is better than having a player option. I'd love to hear the rationale for that. And I don't think LeBron appreciates the fact that he's LeBron James and he is now out in the wind and he's not in control of his own destiny, right? And I think that is where the tension lies. So not with the players themselves. I genuinely think he likes Luca, loves Austin Reeves, all these guys. It's with the front office and the idea the Lakers seem to be pushing him out the door.

How long do you think he wants to play? I have no idea. But I genuinely, where I've kind of landed on this is I genuinely don't think he knows what he's where I think we're seeing him sort of figure out like, wait, what do I want to do and how do I want this to end? Like, I don't think he knows yet either. I think part of, I think being on the expiring deal for the first time is something that's thrown him. I think he has a lot of boxes he wants to check with how he wants his career to end, whether it's being on a winning team. He's been big since Miami and not taking pay cuts, which I understand.

but at some point you're going to have to decide, okay, I cannot take a payout, but I can't play on a championship team. I think he's going to want a farewell tour. We all assume that, right? There's going to be an announcement before a season of a farewell tour. I think he's image conscious. I don't think we're going to see him just join a random team we have no connection with for a farewell tour.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe everyone else who knows him a little bit is wrong. It's not like Rich Paul is telling me that, right? We're talking about people a level removed or whatever, just assuming. My guess would be next year is the last year, but that's a complete guess, I don't know. Is it important at all to the Lakers that his last year be with them? All indications are not, right?

That's what it seems like. Rob Polenko was asked on Media Day. You talk about, you know, always trust what he says, but Rob Polenko is asked on Media Day. I forget, you know, LeBron's contract, and his answer was, we'd love LeBron's story to end here, but he kind of left out any part about the contract. And I joke that it's, you know, we'd love his story to end here, and we're hoping it happens now. important to the Lakers, they would have given him a deal. Like, they were in control. They could offer him a contract.

They could have negotiated. There were no negotiations, zero. Right? So then LeBron's side will say, yeah, because we didn't come to them. Fine. I guess it's semantics. If that was important to the Lakers, they would have approached LeBron with some kind of discussion. And there just wasn't. So all, you know, actions over words, all indications are, it does not matter. Now, I ask you this part as man who wrote this book and man who spent four years writing this book. Now, I'll break the wall down just a little bit. You and I have a mutual business man in common, Anthony Matero, your literary agent, right? Good man. Yeah, I've never

written a book, so I don't feel comfortable saying that he is my literary agent because I haven't had him literarily agent anything for me, right? But he sends me the book. I check it out, and then I immediately say to him, okay, so you can't put this book out right now. How does this book end with Luca Donchich showing up. Like now we are at the point where we're really talking about the potential of an ending. Like this is, you have left us hanging in this incredibly suspenseful moment. And I'm like, oh, okay, we must have another chapter coming for a paperback. Okay, this is what it is. But for you, knowing that you were trying to wind this book down, Luca Donchette shows up. Like, what are your thoughts as writer? So two parts. One, I

I was done, right? I ended the book on Brani. I went, like, LeBron and Bronny on the court together, the first game. I thought, like, okay, that works. We are now. LeBron, like, we've shifted. LeBron is now, we're not winning titles anymore. He's done his final achievement.

We're good. Luca Trit happens that night, right? As I'm going home, I saw the tweet. I thought it was, I was driving home. The Shams tweet comes through. I'm so convinced it's a hack that I don't even do the pullover. Not that I would ever look at my phone while driving, right? But I don't do the pullover or anything.

Like, I'm like, oh, it's a hack. And then I see more, and I'm like, oh, shit, you know, it's just, it's just a disaster. So narratively, I'm going to sell a little bit, but I do think it works. It did, there was a bookend because it is like the end of the LeBron Lakers. So I guess, yeah, we, how this year will play out will be really interesting and the offseason will be really interesting and you can put 100% right because it could get ugly. Maybe it not. I don't know.

The other part we have to mention, I don't know how this plays in is the Lakers are under new ownership now. We're still finding out what that means. So I don't know how that would impact any of this, right? for all I know this Mark Walter is like, no, I want LeBron. It's important for my first thing not to be to kick LeBron to the curb, give my max deal. I'd be stunned, but I have no idea, right? So, but narratively, I was like, okay, no, this is truly the end of the LeBron.

They are now the Luca Lakers. This is truly the end. So I was able to pull that. You know what? I felt like when I got some good reporting and I got the group chat as the reaction to the trade, I was like, okay, that was worth it. It's okay. I'm good.

Now, you mentioned Brani and I've forgotten to ask about that movie. How did everybody around feel about this? Because this is, no matter what LeBron says, this is as amazing a concession as any team has ever made to anybody. And I think, and by the way, I think it's interesting can you say that because I agree. And it's very clear where the Lakers were willing to make the concessions to LeBron and Clutch were sort of those on the margin moves, right?

That's where we'll have a 10th man that we don't even talk on, Lonnie Walker, no offense to Lonnie Walker. But random guys, right? We're just, yeah, we can do those. It's the TIE Loo. it's Kyrie Irving, it's things like that where we're going to hold the line here. It's actually interesting.

Most people that I spoke to, whether players or people around and they were okay with the Bronny thing, which kind of understood it. And I think big part of that is, by all accounts, Bronny really is. I'm going to sell like an old guy now, but a great kid. And I think that really helps him. He works hard.

He's quiet, but they like, he's likable. Like every, honestly, it's one of the Braun's greatest accomplishments that he was able to raise a kid who, by all accounts, is incredible in this fishbowl, right? It's sort of as a child start. It's funny because as a parent myself, I sometimes would, I see LeBron, like, you know, do the things where he says,

Bronny can play in the NBA now. He's better than all these guys. He's putting the spotlight on him, which I think is unfair. And I say, this looks like awful parenting to me. But then I guess what do I know? Because the kid, you know, he raised Bronny in this incredibly difficult situation.

It seems to be going well. So I think the read I got us, people are all cool with it. But I think that's mostly because of who Brani is. I'm telling you so funny. in 2023. Yeah. I was something that will probably never happen again.

I was a guest on the Daily Show. And Marlon, Marlon Wayans, I was called a Marlon Brando. Brando, that's a big, that would be a good show. Yeah, and Marlon Brando had been hosting the Daily Show, and I was a guest, who boy. So Marlon Wayans is hosting, and this is when I was doing the show for HBO. So they got to come up with sports questions. And so Marlon asked me what I think about, like, will the bronze

said about Brony because it had been that week. And the point that I made was, at that time, the Lakers was something like ninth or tenth in the West. And where if Brony's saying that Brani is better than half the people he's seeing on the league pass, then that means that he's saying that he better

than half the people that's on the Lakers. So I'll bring his little ass to work and we'll see just how good he is. Fast forward a year. And that is exactly what he did. Yep. By the way, it turned out that he was not. better than half of the league.

No, that's... We found that out pretty quickly, but I realized years later, it was like, oh, this was a ridiculous joke at the time. And then it happened. Yeah, it's wild.

And again, I'm saying, as a parent, it was awful. He, Brony would... Brony was unassuming and he would say all the right things. And LeBron just parachutes out of there. And he's tweeting out was, I think Jonathan Gavoni,

they had, maybe they dropped LeBronie from a mock draft. He, like, got annoyed about that. He was just bringing the spotlight, doing all the sports dad things, and we all make fun of it. But he was doing the sports dad things, which is, you know, I make fun of it. It's a random guy in my kid's little league game, let alone LeBron. I'm Bronny who was trying to bring into the NBA. And so again, it's a tester to Brani that he was just able to ignore it.

I remember I went to Bronnie's press conference at the Combine, and he was sort of, I wish I had the exact quote. But it was his first time really talking to NBA reporters and addressing the stuff. And he didn't like say my dad's wrong, but it was something like, yeah, that's him and I kind of ignore it. It was really mature. Maybe that's the best word. It's mature. There's a level maturity to him. That's impressive.

Is there anything in your reporting on this book that really jumped out and surprised you when you came across it? Yeah. I mean, some of the, again, not to pick up, I'm the Rob Polinka, some of the reputational stuff I found really interesting and surprising. The stuff, again, LeBron, some of the stuff about LeBron, especially that first year, which we kind of knew, the first year in L.A. He was just a bad teammate. He said he was joining a team that was full young guys, and he said he knew it was Ingram and Coosman, Lanzel Ball. He knew what he was joining.

He said he was cool with that. And very early on, he made clear he would not. You know, there's Anthony Davis trade rumors and all that other stuff. The bubble stuff was interesting, too. Like, it just, the LeBron, the social justice stuff. I know I will say this quote hasn't got picked up. I think my favorite quote in the book is during one LeBron's talk, They're having one of these union meetings, LeBron's talking the owners,

during the social justice stuff. And he wants to get promises from the owners that they're going to do what he wants. And Tillman Fertita says at some point, I lobby Congress all the time, so I know how to get this stuff done. And I just love that quote. Like that was fantastic. So yeah, but a big picture, I would say two things, Polinka being Polinka.

And I overestimated how much control LeBron and Clutch had. I thought they were really running things more than maybe it was necessary. the case. I forgot that LeBron had put a for sale sign on the entire 2018, 2019 Lakers roster. I completely forgot he said they could all go. Yeah, they comes in. Like he comes in one day. Someone explained me a scene like the AD rumor, trade rumors happen. And LeBron like told David Bannerman on the record. When LeBron tells a reporter something on the record, that's not like an accident. He knows what he's doing. You know, I would love to see AD here. And a few days later, he comes in and like the rumors around the TV.

and someone described it. It comes in with like this mug of tea and just saying, hey guys, what's going on? Just trolling everything. So yeah, he did that. And that was right after, it wasn't like the team was put together poorly around him after.

I mean, there was some mistakes. But he joined the team that wasn't ready for a title. He knew that. All right, that's your own whitesman. Check out his book, A Hollywood ending, talking about the LeBron era

of the Los Angeles Lakers available wherever you get your books. My man, I greatly appreciate you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Bomania. This is great. All right, ladies and gentlemen, Thanks so much for joining us here on The Right Time.

We do this three, four times a week, actually. Brian Brumley handled everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Hit our voicemail line 3-2, 3-3-5-6-7-67-67. Remember, follow the right time, subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. And we'll talk to you guys in a couple of days.

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