{"id":152876,"date":"2025-07-30T21:45:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T01:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=152876"},"modified":"2025-07-30T21:45:51","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T01:45:51","slug":"lebron-james-maverick-carter-reason-for-st-tropez-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/30\/lebron-james-maverick-carter-reason-for-st-tropez-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James, Maverick Carter\u2019s Reason For St. Tropez Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, the basketball world was set on fire after Mi\u0161ko Ra\u017enatovi\u0107, the agent of Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic<\/a>, posted a picture of himself with Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James<\/a> and his business partner Maverick Carter on a boat in St. Tropez. Naturally, the first thought was that the three parties were discussing a potential team-up<\/a>. With the ever-cryptic James appearing open to leaving the Lakers as early as this offseason<\/a>, perhaps he was gauging Jokic\u2019s interest in being teammates.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, those three men were indeed politicking about a partnership. It just wasn\u2019t the one that everyone thought.<\/p>\n

LeBron James, Maverick Carter\u2019s Reason For St. Tropez Trip<\/h2>\n

The \u201cmysterious boat meeting last week in France between LeBron James, his business partner Maverick Carter, and Nikola Joki\u0107\u2019s European agent was about the planned international basketball league being spearheaded by Carter,\u201d according to Front Office Sports reporters Ben Horney, Daniel Roberts and Alex Schiffer.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Dec 5, 2023; Los Angeles, California, USA; Media personality and socialite Kim Kardashian meets with businessman Maverick Carter at the In Season Tournament quarterfinal between the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In January, Bloomberg\u2019s Gillian Tan, Matthew Monks and Michelle F. Davis noted that Carter was \u201cseeking to raise $5 billion<\/a> from private capital sources.\u201d They also mentioned that the proposed international league would feature six men\u2019s and six women\u2019s teams playing in eight cities. Front Office Sports reporters A.J. Perez and Daniel Roberts followed up on this story, stating that \u201cthe league will operate outside North America<\/a>, but no other details were offered for any franchise locations, with the exception of Singapore.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mention of Singapore is particularly notable, as their government is one of the league\u2019s investors<\/a>, per Financial Times (h\/t Front Office Sports).<\/p>\n

\u201cIts investors, according to the Financial Times, include the Singapore government, SC Holdings, Riyadh\u2019s Public Investment Fund, UBS,Skype founder Geoff Prentice, former Facebook executive Grady Burnett. VC firm Quiet Capital and tech investor Byron Deeter are reportedly raising capital. Galaxy Entertainment, which is based in Hong Kong, is also reportedly a partner.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back in January, James wasn\u2019t thought to be part of the plan. However, his influence extends far beyond the basketball court, as he\u2019s a highly-regarded businessman himself. With his status and connections, he could accelerate the process of getting the new league up and running.<\/p>\n

What Is Ra\u017enatovi\u0107\u2019s Role?<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s unclear exactly where Ra\u017enatovi\u0107 figures into all of this.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt that he\u2019s one of the biggest agents in the international circuit. His client base includes not only Jokic, but players such as promising Oklahoma City Thunder guard Nikola Topic<\/a> and\u00a0growing Miami Heat forward Nikola Jovic<\/a>. In international leagues, he represents players like decorated Dubai wing Dzanan Musa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With that being said, no matter how much money a league has, they need good players. Ra\u017enatovi\u0107 can help them get more than a few.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, the basketball world was set on fire after Mi\u0161ko Ra\u017enatovi\u0107, the agent of Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, posted a picture of himself with Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James and his business partner Maverick Carter on a boat in St. Tropez. Naturally, the first thought was that the three parties were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":152885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,1608,2,26,62,3],"tags":[66,38,50227,72],"class_list":["post-152876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-basketball","category-basketball","category-featured","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-international-basketball","tag-lebron-james","tag-maverick-carter","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152876"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152886,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152876\/revisions\/152886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}