Los Angeles Lakers: Evidence that stars do want to play with LeBron James

Here is the evidence that superstars do want to play with Los Angeles Lakers superstar, LeBron James

A season and a half ago Paul George requested to be traded from his respective Indiana Pacers. George announced that he preferred to be dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers at the time.

Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka were convinced that George would sign with the Purple and Gold in free agency, so much so that they refrained from offering significant assets to acquire George in a trade. Instead, Sam Presti orchestrated a trade to land George on the Oklahoma City Thunder and cross his fingers that he’d re-sign with them in the offseason.

The Thunder were bounced in the first round by the Utah Jazz in Paul George’s first season with the team, which led many to expect that Paul George would indeed sign with the Lakers. Without even meeting with the Purple and Gold a meeting, George re-upped with OKC.

Most people believed that George didn’t want to play in LeBron’s shadow in Los Angeles. Superstars don’t and never have wanted to play in other stars shadow’s, and that wasn’t going to be the case with George.

Fast forward another half of an NBA season, and Kawhi Leonard makes the same request as George. Nearly identical to the previous situation with George, Johnson and Pelinka held onto their young assets with the belief that they’d sign Leonard in free agency.

Both Leonard and George asked to be dealt to the Lakers, but neither time was LeBron James on the roster. Although George signed with the Thunder before LeBron signed with the Lakers, the NBA was made well aware that LeBron was taking his talents to the Purple and Gold.

After George and Kawhi decided to play for the LA team without LeBron on it, people have every right to believe that superstars don’t want to play with James, because he is a greater superstar. Superstars have rarely preferred to play alongside greater superstars. That being said, LeBron has still done an incredible job of procuring other NBA stars to team-up with him, which proves that he actually just might be the most desired superstar teammate to have in NBA history.

Here are a few examples.