Rich Paul defends LeBron after MJ agent's 'cherry-picking' comments

Rich Paul, the longtime agent and friend of LeBron James, came to his defense after Michael Jordan's agent accused the Los Angeles Lakers star of cherry-picking teams to win championships.

"I just thought that was very unfair and a little beneath David Falk for a number of reasons," Paul said Thursday during an appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show." "We can't have revisionist history, and we all want to determine who's the GOAT and who's the best and so on and so forth. But I just thought that was a little beneath David to say that."

Falk, who represented Jordan throughout his career, said Tuesday at Sports Business Journal's 4se conference in New York City that his former client could've won 15 titles had he "cherry-picked what teams he wanted to be on and two other superstars." The comments came during a discussion about the NBA GOAT debate.

Paul believes that because of how good of a situation Jordan had in Chicago, where he won all six of his championships, there was no need for him to leave the Bulls.

"When you look at that, right, again the cherry-pick, I've discussed that. The two other superstars - Michael never had to leave," Paul said. "Michael's never been the underdog in any Finals. Not one time. Michael never had a 24-hour, 365 news cycle. He never had shows built strictly to criticize him. People made millions of dollars criticizing LeBron James. That was their entire job.

"And when you talk about the difficulty of it all, Michael played for Dean Smith, Michael played for Phil Jackson, and Michael had Jerry Krause. I'm the biggest Michael Jordan fan ever, love Michael Jordan, and I don't think Michael Jordan would've used the term 'cherry-pick,' so I'm not up here to discredit Michael Jordan. I think Michael Jordan transcended our game to a level that we all benefitted from."

James has won four championships during his 22-year NBA career, the latest of which came in 2020 with the Lakers.