Hands Up If You’re Also Ready for LeBron James to Make Up His Mind

The latest on LeBron James is that there is no latest on LeBron James, and the show has entered the stage of the process where it is checking Pat Beverley's social media accounts for clues.

It is the third week of July. James has had the entire month. The only decision he has made decisively, as Rich framed it, was telling the Lakers they will not be business partners any longer.

Everything since has been silence, and the silence now has consequences. Adam Silver said at Fanatics Fest last week that the league would like to know, because it cannot build a national television schedule around a player when nobody knows where the player will be playing.

"So LeBron's kind of holding the league hostage right now," came the read from the set.

The information vacuum has produced some genuinely funny work. Rich walked through Marc Spears looking at the preseason schedule and noting that the Lakers open against the Warriors, which would presumably mean Golden State. The comments immediately pointed out that those two teams play each other in the preseason every year.

So social media was out. Which left the podcast world, and specifically Rich Paul sitting with Max Kellerman on a show called "Game Over."

Paul confirmed he had spoken with Silver directly. "I saw Adam in New York and we discussed it, and like I said, it's still his choice," Paul said. "If he doesn't really know, can't rush it."

Asked about a report that a decision was coming within 48 hours, Paul called it false, then immediately undercut himself.

"These people don't know anything, man," Paul said. "I don't know when his choice is going to be made, but it could be 48 seconds. It could be 48 minutes."

Rich caught it right away, and he was affectionate about it. He loves Rich Paul, loves his story, loves that he was wearing a Yankees hat. He also noticed that Paul denied a 48-hour timeline by offering two windows that fall comfortably inside the first hour of it.

"We are confused," Rich said.

The set went looking for an NFL equivalent and could not quite find one. Aaron Rodgers never held up a schedule. Brett Favre's summers of indecision were legendary, and Rich rolled out the story he heard about Ted Thompson going down to Mississippi offering to cut Favre's actual locker out of Lambeau Field and ship it to him. But the NFL schedule comes out in May, and Favre Watch never pushed it into June.

Where the room split was on whether any of this actually matters.

One argument on the set was that it is disrespectful to the 300 other players in the league and every other team. Rich pushed back vehemently, guessing that 299 of them do not care.

His broader position was closer to a shrug. Amazon, NBC, ESPN, ABC and the local networks covering the five teams reportedly in the running can all wait. Christmas Day plans for the 76ers with Jaylen Brown, the Heat with Giannis, the Warriors with Steph and Draymond, the Timberwolves with Anthony Edwards or the Cavaliers with Donovan Mitchell and James Harden are already being held hostage by the same uncertainty.

"It goes into August and then we all adjust," Rich said. The league flexes games now. Everybody figures it out.

The real deadline, someone noted, is football. Once training camp opens, nobody is going to care.

Rich's solution was more direct. If James has not decided by next week, he is calling Rich Paul himself.