After Reporting Everything Under The Sun When It Came To Giannis, Shams Admitted He Completely Buried News When It Came To LeBron

Laura June Kirsch. Getty Images.

In the aftermath of LeBron finally making his decision to take his talents to Philly, we're starting to get more and more insight into the inner workings of how that process unfolded, who was or wasn't in the running, stuff like that. Given what a massive story that was, it's pretty normal to get the details of the situation after the fact, and admittedly some are more interesting than others.

For example, this little nugget from Shams while appearing on Rich Paul's podcast talking about how he knew of the secret meeting LeBron had with the Cavs in early July, but he decided to bury the story and not report it.

Listen, I won't pretend to be a journalist and that I know the rules of "off the record" vs "on the record". But I will say it's a little suspicious that when it came to LeBron and news around his free agency, everything Shams learned was apparently off the record and he decided not to share it, yet he spent 2 years pretty much doing the exact opposite when it came to the Giannis situation. Is it possible that every time he learned something about Giannis he confirmed that it was "on the record" and that's why he put it out? I suppose. Is it also possible that he was just throwing out everything he heard regardless when it came to that situation? I'd tend to think so given how that reporting went. 

So why did he bury the LeBron news? I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to imagine why

Allen Berezovsky. Getty Images.

Allen Berezovsky. Getty Images.

It's pretty obvious Klutch probably wanted that info buried. Rich Paul acting so surprised that Shams knew of the meeting was a great bit, I can't lie. It's no secret that Shams has pretty much always been a Klutch guy. If Shams had put that news out there, how do we think Klutch would react? 

I'm also not even sure why that meeting had to be kept a secret. It wasn't as if the Cavs were some surprise team. We all knew they were on LeBron's list well before early July. Hell, Rich Paul himself even had the Cavs on LeBron's free agency whiteboard!

Back when we were dealing with the Giannis sweepstakes, Shams was very adamant that he had a duty to report everything he heard because it was his job. This sure feels like a shift in approach now that he was dealing with a Klutch client. I'm sure he didn't want to burn that relationship, so he changed course. If that's what happened, that feels….not great. Again, I'm not a Big J journo so maybe that's the norm, but it doesn't exactly feel on the level.

Also, isn't talking about said meeting on this podcast the same thing as reporting it? So it was off the record to say these things 3 weeks ago, but now he can report it? Or is it more now that LeBron has made his decision and Klutch wouldn't care anymore, now Shams feels OK talking about it? That also doesn't feel great. 

All in all, this is a good reminder that NBA "insiders", even Shams, are mostly at the mercy of teams/agents and will do whatever they can to shift their reporting to help that source out. It's why you always have to take things with a grain of salt as there is almost always an agenda at play when these things happen. Teams will leak something to a reporter to get that narrative out there, and agents will do the same from the player side. Back when we had the Shams vs Woj Era, Shams was always the player-side reporter and Woj was always the team side. 

I also think this is another example that shows just how powerful Rich Paul and Klutch Sports are within the NBA landscape. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not if they are able to manipulate reporting, but my guess is probably not. If all these reporters are afraid of pissing off Rich Paul and what it could mean for getting info down the road, that feels a bit problematic.