Michael Redd reveals 2008 LeBron James recruiting pitch at Beijing Olympics, inadvertently fuels ‘LeGM’ narrative

LeBron James has reshaped the NBA by actively recruiting and trading teammates rather than relying on his front office since age 23.

Michael Redd reveals 2008 LeBron James recruiting pitch at Beijing Olympics, inadvertently fuels ‘LeGM’ narrative

Michael Redd, LeBron James (Image via NBA Chronicles/X)

Through 22 seasons of playing NBA basketball, LeBron James has played with most of the league’s best players of the 21st century. However, when the 6’9″, 260 lb forward spent 7 seasons in his initial spell at Cleveland, recruiting co-stars was hard. The Cavaliers weren’t a team with the history of the Knicks, Lakers, or the Celtics. And teaming up with stars in their prime wasn’t exactly a trend during that slice of history.

James made the NBA playoffs and won his first playoff round by his third season in the league. He went two steps better, winning the Eastern Conference with his Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2006-07 season next year.

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However, after the Boston Celtics added Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen alongside Paul Pierce, some things changed. The Eastern Conference playoff path became way more treacherous for LeBron to navigate with the team he had.

After shooting only 35.5% from the field in the Eastern Conference Finals, James realized he needed more help. The Cavaliers’ front office looked for solutions, landing on the Milwaukee Bucks‘ fledgling star Mo Williams as one. The team’s franchise star at the time, Michael Redd, was taken aback when he learned of the news. It wasn’t just the news that hit him – Redd recently remarked in an interview that it was James who broke the news of the trade to him.

Redd was a member of the 2008 Beijing Olympics basketball team, popularly dubbed as the Redeem Team. The southpaw was one of the smoothest jump shooters in the league during his prime, earning a deserved Olympic selection as a result.

Redd was an Ohio native himself, and soon he became exasperated with the Bucks’ front office, anticipating a trade to Cleveland. However, it was his teammate who ended up getting the trade. He described how he learned about this trade thus.

And so, by 07, new management comes in, things are happening in 08. And there‘s rumblings of me potentially getting traded to Cleveland to play with LeBron, which I was kind of anticipating. There was billboards in Cleveland about me coming to Cleveland, it was crazy at that time. And so I come down one morning for breakfast, and LeBron’s looking at me (gesticulates smiling). He’s like ‘We got your boy’. I said ‘What are you talking about?’ He said ‘We got Mo Williams in a trade’. We didn’t get you, we got Mo Williams.

Michael Redd on learning about Mo Williams’ trade from LeBron James

Redd also remarked how LeBron was the one who broke the news of the trade to him, stating in a tweet, “I heard about this trade not from my agent. Not from the GM. From LeBron himself. That’s interesting because I was rumored to go to Cleveland.”

Michael Redd’s statement proves that LeBron James was actively working as a front-office lobbyist before his Miami Heat move

There’s a lot to be said about how LeBron James has shifted the landscape of the NBA with his wheeling and dealing. He’s been given a nickname ‘LeGM’, both by former and current players, as well as by fans. Unlike superstars who have stuck with one team and let their front offices improve their rosters, James has been actively recruiting and trading for supporting pieces around him even from when he was aged 23.

What Michael Redd revealed in this interaction serves only to deepen the impression that James has been actively involved in his teams’ front office moves even before he served up the monumental formation of the Miami Heat Big 3 in 2010 with his move to South Beach as a free agent.

James’ work as a recruiter only became apparent during his second Cleveland spell. But he was clearly more in the know from about a decade before that.

The stark contrast between James’ pro-activeness as a recruiter and other superstars like Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Steph Curry and Luka Doncic, who allowed their front offices to operate at their own pace rather than forcing the issue, isn’t lost on NBA fans.