Rich Paul running the LeBron sweepstakes solo is great news for the Sixers

Rich Paul is now officially the only person LeBron James is letting anywhere near his free agency, and if you’re a Sixers fan, you should be thrilled about it.

According to Chris Haynes, LeBron isn’t taking meetings. No pitches. No steak dinners. No PowerPoints. Rich Paul talks to every team, gathers the intel, and hands LeBron a folder at the end. LeBron makes the final call, but the entire process runs through one man.

The man who went on his own podcast four days ago and pointed at the Sixers first.

Rich Paul already told you where he stands

Let’s connect the dots here, because they are not hard to connect.

Paul pulled out a whiteboard on Game Over last week with 10 landing spots on it. He pointed at Philadelphia before anyone else and said “everything changed” after the Jaylen Brown trade. He called the Sixers “Maxey’s team.” He said LeBron “enhances everything there” and “unlocks everything there.” And out of every name on that whiteboard, across all 10 teams, exactly one player got a star next to his name.

Tyrese Maxey. A Klutch client.

Now we find out that same guy, the one who represents Maxey, the one who publicly gushed about the Sixers roster on national distribution, is the sole gatekeeper for this entire decision. He’s the filter. Every pitch from Miami, Cleveland, Denver, Golden State, and Minnesota gets translated through Rich Paul before it ever reaches LeBron’s ears.

You think the Philly section of that folder is getting a lukewarm write-up? The man already did the write-up. On camera. With a marker.

The homework Rich Paul is doing fits the Sixers perfectly

Paul told Kellerman he’s studying four things: defensive ratings, individual on-ball defense, help defense, and how offenses are run. He’s also digging into how coaches perform on after-timeout plays.

That’s a checklist built for a 41-year-old who wants to be the secondary playmaker next to a young scorer who can carry the load. Which is, conveniently, the exact situation Paul described in Philadelphia when he talked about LeBron facilitating for Maxey and mentoring Edgecombe.

Haynes says all six teams believe they have a real shot. Sure they do. Everybody believes they have a real shot right up until the agent who controls the process, the one who loves Maxey “so we don’t even have to talk about that,” hands his client the folder.

I’m not saying it’s done. I’ve been a Philadelphia sports fan too long to say anything is done. Embiid’s health questions are real, and Miami and Cleveland are real threats.

But the most powerful agent in basketball is running this thing alone, and he spent last Friday telling the world the Sixers changed everything.

The intel is being gathered by a guy who already picked a favorite.

Make it happen, Gansey.