Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said he consulted LeBron James (and Anthony Davis) on roster moves last summer.
Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated:
This sounds very whiny. LeBron is the most important person in the Lakers organization for their championship hopes. He’s also a basketball genius. Of course, he should have major say in filling the roster.
Maybe those agents didn’t present their case well enough. Maybe their players just weren’t good enough. Maybe their players happened not to fit.
All the time, teams don’t sign players. LeBron is an easy scapegoat, because so many people still resent players having control. But LeBron and the Lakers don’t owe anything to those agents or their players.
Sometimes, LeBron’s influence (directly or indirectly) has gotten underqualified friends onto his roster. There’s more room for griping in those cases. But that seemingly didn’t happen last summer. The Lakers didn’t sign Carmelo Anthony, after all.
The Lakers are exceptionally deep behind LeBron and Davis. It was a high bar for earning a roster spot.
Blaming LeBron like this is ridiculous.