Daryl Morey Tried To Recruit LeBron From Sam Hinkie's House

The Process makes an appearance in a book about the Lakers.

The following is an excerpt from (the Ricky’s own?) Yaron Weitzman’s new book, A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams and Drama of the LeBron Lakers. You may remember Yaron from the hit book that featured a whole chapter on the Ricky, Tanking To The Top. Yaron will be on the Ricky next week to discuss the book.

Here’s the context: In the lead-up to the February 2024 trade deadline, two teams—after LeBron James had spent a few weeks taking passive-aggressive shots at the Lakers—reached out to see if he might be available. One was the Warriors. The other was the Sixers. Daryl Morey knew it was a long shot, but figured it was worth asking. And as you’ll see below, it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to land LeBron, despite knowing that the odds were slim.

…Practice at Nike’s New York headquarters, LeBron spoke to reporters for the first time since his hourglass tweet. Leaning against a fence with his shoulders hunched, a white knit cap on his head and a sullen look on his face, LeBron fielded questions.

“There was a lot of speculation about what your tweet meant… Do you want to clarify?” Woike asked.
“No,” LeBron said softly.
“You have an option this summer with the Lakers, do you know what you’re gonna do?” McMenamin asked.
“No,” LeBron mumbled.

LeBron’s frustration was so evident that, in the lead-up to the trade deadline, two teams even called the Lakers to see if he was available. The first was the Sixers, whose top executive, Daryl Morey, never missed an opportunity to try reeling in a star. In fact, this wasn’t the first time that Morey had gone after LeBron despite knowing his odds of acquiring him were slim.

Back in the summer of 2014, when LeBron opted out of his contract with the Heat, Morey was running the Rockets. Like most of the NBA world, he was all but certain that LeBron would be signing with the Cavs. Yet even if he had only a one percent chance of landing LeBron, he figured it was still worth taking a swing.

That same summer, Morey was chasing free-agent point guard Kyle Lowry. Lowry was spending his summer in his hometown of Philadelphia; Morey’s plan was to show up at his door at midnight, when free agency officially started. Morey arrived in Philadelphia the day before and, instead of spending the evening in a hotel, camped out at the house of his close friend Sam Hinkie, the general manager of the Sixers. Morey was preparing his Lowry pitch when, at around 11 p.m., he heard from Rockets head coach (and Hall of Fame player) Kevin McHale.

I forgot to tell you, McHale told Morey. We got our time with LeBron.

It turned out that the reason Morey hadn’t yet heard from Klutch was because McHale, who was longtime friends with Mark Termini, already had. McHale had just neglected to pass the information along.

Not in the afternoon but in the morning—meaning Morey had less than four hours to prepare. With Hinkie laughing in the background, and while picking at cookies baked by Hinkie’s wife, Morey scrambled to scribble down notes. When the time arrived, he and McHale hopped on a conference call with Rich Paul and Termini. They were told LeBron was present and listening, but they were dubious; he never said a word.

This time around, however, Morey didn’t even get to speak with anyone from Klutch. Rob Pelinka told him that the Lakers weren’t dealing LeBron, then countered with a question of his own: Were Morey and the Sixers interested in trading their own star, Joel Embiid? Morey said he was not.

The other call came from the Warriors. On February 5, four days after LeBron’s comments in New York and the day before the trade deadline, Draymond Green, the team’s star forward and a Klutch client, encouraged team owner Joe Lacob to contact the Lakers. Everyone could see how despondent LeBron looked; perhaps, the Warriors thought, linking up with Green and Steph Curry would be an opportunity that reinvigorated him. Lacob reached out to Jeanie Buss. She said the Lakers had no desire to trade LeBron; what she didn’t say was that they wouldn’t trade him. She told Lacob to speak to Paul and find out what LeBron wanted, the implication being that if LeBron was indeed interested in a deal, she’d consider it.

It was a stunning, out-of-character reply. This was the daughter of Dr. Jerry Buss, the steward of the Lakers, someone who prided herself on catering to stars and who believed that nothing in the sports business was more important than doing so. Sure, at a recent league meeting she had mentioned to some peers that she was growing tired of the partnership with Klutch and LeBron. But grumbling behind closed doors was one thing. Being open to a breakup with LeBron was another.

(The Lakers dispute this interpretation of the events. “Saying that [Jeanie] had no desire to trade James certainly does not mean that she would consider trading him—it means the opposite,” the team representative said. “To claim that her statement somehow meant that she would consider trading him is false.”)

Paul told Lacob that LeBron wasn’t looking to change teams. The Lakers had called LeBron’s bluff. He didn’t want to leave LA. He never did. What he wanted was for the Lakers to prioritize the present—to show more urgency in surrounding him with a championship-caliber team. Jeanie and Pelinka wanted that too, but doing so was no longer their sole goal. After all, LeBron was now thirty-nine years old. It was time to start planning for life without him, whether he liked it or not.

The trade deadline passed without the Lakers making a single move.