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Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz discusses Golden State reaching out to the Los Angeles Lakers and trying to acquire LeBron James at the trade deadline and what that move says about both the Warriors and LeBron.

Video Transcript

– The Warriors and the Lakers were this close to making the NBA trade deadline one of the most electric trade deadlines we’ve ever seen in any sport. According to reports, the Warriors reached out to LA to see if there was any interest in moving LeBron.

Now, this came from Draymond going to ownership and saying, hey, let’s at least take a stab at it. And remember, Draymond and LeBron share the same agent, so he should have some working knowledge on LeBron’s happiness.

The Warriors make the call. It doesn’t go anywhere, but it still tells us something.

Realistically, from the Warriors’ side, it tells us they are still interested in doing whatever it takes to extend this era of championships, to extend this era of relevance that they’ve never seen before. As long as you have Steph, you have a chance. And as long as you have Steph, you will be part of the NBA consciousness. So why not go out and try and give him somebody that can help him win right now? Especially when you start talking about combining LeBron, Draymond, Steph together, it gives you the sort of electric tandem that all eyes would be on for every single day for the rest of this season.

Now, from the Lakers’ standpoint, of course they take the phone call, and of course they reach out. Jeanie Buss, the owner, has made it clear that she only wants stars that want to be in LA, so asking LeBron what he wants makes a ton of sense. Maybe the most shocking part of this is that LeBron didn’t want anything to do with it.

The Lakers aren’t good. At the end of the day, the Lakers are going to go through the rest of the season, maybe try and fight their way into the play-in tournament, and then have an early exit.

The Lakers are not going to win a championship. But LeBron, for all of the complaining we’ve seen and for all of the conversation about where the Lakers are headed, had an opportunity to get out, and he chose not to. Now, what does that say? Does that say that LeBron doesn’t really care about championships ? Anymore does it say LeBron’s comfortable with the Lakers?

It certainly doesn’t tell you anything about LeBron wanting to win right now, because you could argue easily that the Warriors would give him a better chance to do it. So maybe from that standpoint, it’s stunning. Maybe it continues to tie in to Bronny and whatever his future looks like. But this is what we know.

We know the Warriors are still interested in winning, and we know that LeBron is still interested in complaining. Because if you wanted an end to the complaints in a better situation, the phone calls would have at least gone to the next level.

By not allowing that to happen, LeBron told us he’d rather be loud than win. LeBron told us he’d rather be part of the conversation than hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

And the Warriors told us they’re going to continue to be aggressive every single day that they have Steph in order to see if there’s some way for them to win a championship