Getty Image
Audio By Carbonatix
Last week, ESPN’s Stephen A Smith caused a bit of a stir in the NBA world when he reported that “people close to Jeanie Buss’ had advised her to trade LeBron James.
'Some people close to Jeanie Buss are telling her to trade Lebron james." – SAS pic.twitter.com/K9XcuxjItu
— John Ledesma (@JohnnyNBA) May 8, 2019
Nothing is out of bounds right now. We don’t know what the hell is going on in Los Angeles. you’ve got folks close to Jeanie Buss imploring her to trade LeBron James. He does not have a no-trade clause, and now you haven’t given him the coach he wanted.
“Lebron James has quietly been about the business of trying to get Kawhi Leonard to come to the Los Angeles Lakers instead of the Los Angeles clippers. So making a move like this, by not bringing in the coach he wants, not securing the coach he wants in Los Angeles, you never know what dominos are going to fall right now.”
Smith would later quietly backtrack from his report by claiming that it was “Hollywood people” who were telling Jeanie Buss to trade LeBron.
I'm told people in Hollywood have told Jeanie Buss to trade @KingJames! pic.twitter.com/PzaOvC3uF0
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) May 9, 2019
According to Ryen Russilo, Stephen A Smith’s source for the report came from Jeanie Buss’ spin class and ESPN still decided to run with the report.
https://twitter.com/pickuphoop/status/1129107951724240898
When I was in ‘Get Up’ with Greenie and Seth Greenberg that was a really weird deal because Stephen A came out and said people close to Jeanie Buss told her she should trade LeBron, we then found out it was people from her spin class and then that became a thing and people built graphics and then Stephen A came on and shot down his own thing and they were like it’s not that big of a deal but they just 24 hours on it.
It’s probably best to take anything ESPN reports about LeBron and the Lakers with a grain of salt from now on.