Chris Paul is focused more on LeBron James’ free agency than his own, according to the latest rumors to flood the NBA.
Paul, the Houston Rockets’ point guard who is also eligible to test his own free agency come July 1 is reportedly returning to the Texas team and focusing more on convincing James to play with him, ESPN sports pundit Adrian Wojnarowski reported on the network’s draft preview podcast Monday.
According to the source known as Woj, somebody close to Paul told the ESPN insider that, “he is as focused on recruiting LeBron as anything he’s done in this league.”
Woj said that if LeBron wanted to play for the Rockets, the team will do all that it can to make it happen. However, another well known ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith has heard differently from his own sources.
On his ESPN podcast Monday, Smith reported that Paul is telling people in Houston that his close friend James would prefer to be in Los Angeles, California than Houston. He is not the only person who seems to think that the Rockets will not land James.
Sports reporter Marla Ridenour who writes for James’ hometown newspaper Akron Beacon Journal said that the superstar NBA forward told her about his dislike for the city of Houston directly.
“I heard this from his own lips when we were in Houston this season,” Ridenour previously told ESPN Radio. “He does not like Houston as a city. So, that would require him moving to a place that he’s not crazy about.”
James must let the Cleveland Cavaliers know if he will opt out of the final year in his contract with the team or stay put by June 29. Earlier this month, James revealed some of the factors that will play into which team he will pursue for what could be his last free agency.
“The one thing that I’ve always done is considered, obviously, my family. Understanding especially where my boys are at this point in their age, they were a lot younger the last time I made a decision like this four years ago,” James said in a previous ESPN report this month. “I’ve got a teenage boy, a preteen and a little girl that wasn’t around as well. So sitting down and considering everything, my family is a huge part of whatever I’ll decide to do in my career, and it will continue to be that. So I don’t have an answer for you right now as far as that.”
