Warriors’ Steve Kerr reveals how close Golden State was to landing LeBron James originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Offseason reports indicated the Golden State Warriors were a legitimate suitor to land LeBron James, who decided to leave the Los Angeles Lakers and sign with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Landing a player of James' caliber would have helped the Warriors a ton, for many reasons. The Warriors not only need more talent on both ends of the floor, but bringing in a guy like James also attracts other free agents.
It would have let the Warriors make other cheaper moves, help sell jerseys and make money, and ultimately give them a better chance of winning a championship than they have now.
While James might not be the player he once was, given his age, there's still a feeling he can help a championship-caliber team. Pairing him with Stephen Curry would have been must-see TV, though Steve Kerr recently said landing James wasn't as close as some of the media made it out to be.
“It never went wrong,” Kerr said, per the Ringer.
“We were never really that close. Steph and Dray obviously are friends with him, so they were doing the recruiting. I know LeBron now pretty well from the Olympics, and so I reached out to him during free agency and he’s always really good about responding to texts. He’s one of the guys who you text, you get a response. I just said, ‘Hey, if we have something to chat about, let me know.’ And I never heard back. And I wasn’t offended at all.”
When James became available, people assumed he might be interested in playing in Golden State, given his relationship with Curry, Draymond Green, and Kerr.
However, it was important to recognize that the likelihood of him going there was low because of the battles he had with the organization early in his career.
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