LeBron James' Agent Says There's 'Room to Grow' in Lakers' 'Mindset' as Organization
LeBron James' agent would like to see the Los Angeles Lakers adopt some of the same principles as one of the teams his superstar client used to play for.
On the debut episode of his Game Over podcast with Max Kellerman, Rich Paul compared the Lakers to the Miami Heat and explained he sees "room to grow" for Los Angeles in terms of its "championship mindset" as an organization.
Heat culture is a well-known slogan around the NBA that is largely used as a catch-all to describe why the organization rarely has long fallow periods.
Pat Riley, the man who is the architect of Heat culture, has defined it as "a shared philosophy with the goal of being great."
One reason that Riley and the Heat can get away with telling a player of James' stature that, as Paul said it, "we're doing things this way" is because they have that track record of success.
Even before James made The Decision in the summer of 2010, the Heat were still among the top teams in the NBA. They made the playoffs six times in the previous seven years, winning a title during the 2005-06 season.
Erik Spoelstra wasn't yet established as one of the league's best head coaches at the time he got to work with the big three of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. He had only been in that role for two seasons before that group joined forces.
There were even rumblings that at one point during the 2010-11 season James wanted Spoelstra fired, though Riley has said there was never any formal conversation about it.
When James joined the Lakers in the summer of 2018, they were a mess. They were coming off five consecutive losing seasons during which time they had three different head coaches.
Even in the time since James has been with the organization, the Lakers have had three head coaches. They did reach the top of the mountain during the 2019-20 season, defeating the Heat in the Finals.
Since that time, though, the Lakers have only won two playoff series. Both of them came during the 2022-23 season when they advanced to the Western Conference Finals.
The hiring of JJ Redick as head coach prior combined with the stunning acquisition of Luka Dončić seems to have helped stabilize things for the franchise in the twilight of James' career.
Los Angeles enters play on Tuesday with a 17-6 record, tied with the Denver Nuggets for the second-best mark in the Western Conference.
