Report: LeBron James Turned Down 2 Teams’ Trade Requests at Deadline

Looks like LeBron James was one of the most "under the radar" sought-after players at the NBA trade deadline. Reports have emerged on this Valentine's Day that both the Golden State Warriors and the Philadelphia 76ers fell in love with the idea of trading for LeBron. But he turned them both down.  

Warriors made ‘unsuccessful bid’ to pair LeBron with Steph before trade deadline, per @wojespn and @ramonashelburne

Both the Lakers and LeBron declined pic.twitter.com/bWU9dD8y6O

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 14, 2024

According to Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, at the insistence of Draymond Green, Warriors owner Joe Lacob actually reached out to Lakers owner Jeanie Buss to see if she and LeBron himself would be open to a trade to Golden State. She contacted James to pose the question, but both he and the Lakers turned it down.

But they weren't the only team to reach out for King James. Sixers head honcho Daryl Morey also gave it a shot.

“After seeing James’ murky social media post of an hourglass a week before the trade deadline, Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey called (Lakers GM Rob) Pelinka to probe on a James trade and was immediately told that James wasn’t available,” Wojnarowski and Shelburne reported Wednesday. “In fact, Pelinka responded by asking Morey if Joel Embiid was available, sources said. And that ended that brief conversation.”

LeBron had shown some impatience about the Lakers' inability to get anything done around the deadline, leading to some uncertainty about his happiness with the team, giving the Warriors and Sixers a little bravado to at least ask the question. 

Since then, the Lakers have added the top player on the buyout market, guard  Spencer Dinwiddie, who just might be nearly as good as any middling player the Lakers might have been able to trade for.

As for Morey and the Sixers, they didn't stop there. Morey also tried to extract Kevin Durant from the Phoenix Suns. He was obviously told that KD was not available.

Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports