Just as everyone suspected, LeBron James was busy putting together his roster Thursday morning as the NBA trade deadline neared. It’s true. The man does get to decide who plays on his team. He chooses.

Yes, LeBron and Giannis Antetokounmpo met electronically to fulfill their roles as All-Star Game captains and choose their teams for the event a week from Sunday.

Oh, the Laker roster? That was still in question on deadline day, as was the issue of how much influence King James has in the matter. We’re guessing it’s not quite as overt as intimated by fans in Indiana when they chanted, “LeBron’s going to trade you,” at Brandon Ingram Tuesday night. But it’s fair to believe — and expect even — that Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka keep LeBron in the loop on some of their workings. With a player of his import, it would be foolish not to.

It’s logical, as well, that James was at least aware of the workings behind Anthony Davis’ request to be traded from New Orleans and the effort to get him to the Lakers. Davis’ agent, Rich Paul, is more than just LeBron’s representative, too. They have been friends since James was in high school.

One might think that the ultimately failed (at least until the offseason) push for Davis fits well with LeBron’s need to speed the Laker ascent toward contender status, in that the latter is 34 years old with more than 1,400 regular season and playoff games under his belt in his 16th season. But James deflected the thought that he’s at the stage where he needs to get things sooner rather than later.

“There’s nothing I need to get in this league that I don’t already have,” LeBron said as he stood on the edge of the Garden court following the Lakers’ shootaround. “So everything else for me is just like icing on the cake. I love the process of everything that I go through to be able to compete every single night and put teams in position to compete for championships.

“But there’s nothing that I’m chasing or that I feel like I need to end my career on.”

Being fully cognizant of James’ competitiveness, it’s hard to take that at face value. There should be no doubt he wants to be in a title hunt now. He is not a fade into the scenery kind of guy.

That common knowledge, along with leaked rumors of trade offer rumors between the Lakers and Pelicans had his present team on some manner of edge. As the Lakers took their shots and prepared to meet the Celtics, were any of them thinking they could be a non-Laker by 3 p.m.?

Asked how these last 24 hours have been for his teammates, James said, “I don’t know. That’s a question for those guys. I’m not sure. I think at the end of the day it’s a business, and there’s going to be speculation. There’s going to be names thrown around throughout your whole career about where you’re going to go when you’re a free agent, where possibly could you go if you’re in trade discussions, if a team wants to buy you out or waive you. It’s just all part of the business, and I think when you truly understand that and you truly know this is a business, but you give 110 percent to whatever situation that you’re in, then you’re able to live with it.

“But I know this has to be tough on guys that for the first time in their career, especially if you’re a young guy, to be able to hear your name in trade rumors when you’ve been somewhere for a few years.”

It’s NBA business as usual for LeBron, who isn’t even allowing that this year’s deadline drama in crazier than usual.

“I wouldn’t say so. I think it’s always… you know, the suspense and the excitement around the trade deadline is always kind of pretty crazy,” he said. “But it’s always been like that. Sometimes things happen where guys and players and teams exchange players, and sometimes it don’t happen. But the conversations and the speculation is always there every year.”

Clearly, however, James does have an issue with people who see the players with all the power — possibly a direct response to the criticism lobbed at Davis for asking the Pelicans for a trade. James took to Instagram Wednesday night, using the example of the Harrison Barnes deal from Dallas to Sacramento to note how teams can trade a player during a game.

“It’s not that it’s hard for them to understand the two sides,” James said of fans. “They understand the one side. They understand the one side where if a guy gets traded or if a guy gets waived or if a guy gets released or cut or whatever, then, you know, it’s for the best of the franchise — which I agree. I mean, teams have to do what’s best for their franchise to set them up for the near future or for the present.

“But at the same time, players have that ability to do it, as well. And if a player asks to be traded because he feels like it’s for the better of his profession, for the better of his career, or if a player decides he’s a free agent and he wants to leave, then that should be the same conversation. That should be the same narrative and not that this guy or this kid or whatever the case may be is selfish or ungrateful or he didn’t appreciate where he was from or appreciate what he got. I think you do what’s best for your career, because at the end of the day we only have so many years to play the game and you want to try to maximize it as much as possible.

“So I like it on both sides. I mean, I see it from both sides. I see it from both angles, both franchise and players, but it’s just the narrative that we would like to be able to be changed.”

It makes sense that LeBron can understand the two sides of the management/player coin. He’s always chosen to be more than a player.