Supposed Golden State trade Warriors target LeBron James appreciates that moving him could get “complicated,” an insider reveals.
Tim MacMahon of ESPN recently unpacked why a James deal hasn’t gotten done yet — and may not at all.
“It has been radio silent since James, via his agent Rich Paul, attempted to rattle the Lakers’ cages immediately after exercising his $52.6 million player option for this season,” MacMahon wrote. “The all-time leading scorer and his camp understand just how complicated a trade involving him—at his age, making that much money, with the contractual right to veto any deal—would be.”
The Cost of Doing Business with LeBron James
MacMahon has a point.
There’s another cost to being in business with James, too — dealing with James’ deft handling of the media when he’s unhappy on a team.
When it was revealed that the Lakers hadn’t reached a contract extension agreement with James this summer, making him effectively a 40-year old expiring $52.6 million contract this year (albeit an All-NBA Second Team expiring contract), Paul reached out to Shams Charania of ESPN to speak for a disappointed James.
“LeBron wants to compete for a championship,” Paul told Charania. “He knows the Lakers are building for the future. He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all.”
This is a curious thing to say about a team that upgraded from Anthony Davis with Luka Doncic for a relative low price in terms of young talent and future draft equity (wing Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick) at the trade deadline and went on to go 50-32 and secure the Western Conference’s No. 3 seed.
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Granted, the Lakers got booted in a five-game, first-round playoff series for the second time in as many seasons, and then surprisingly let top wing defender Dorian Finney-Smith depart in a free agent deal with rising West rival the Houston Rockets.
But the team rebounded this summer, somewhat, in adding a starting-level center, the mercurial Deandre Ayton, on a reasonable two-year deal. L.A. also added forward Dorian Finney-Smith and aging former Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart, although the team still seems to be significantly behind reigning champ the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston, the Denver Nuggets, and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“We understand the difficulty in winning now while preparing for the future. We do want to evaluate what’s best for LeBron at this stage in his life and career,” Paul told Charania. “He wants to make every season he has left count, and the Lakers understand that, are supportive and want what’s best for him.”
Did all this cryptic talk about joining a win-now roster mean James was hoping to be traded out of town?
A recent report from The Stein Line’s Jake Fischer indicated that the Warriors had contacted L.A. multiple times about trading for James. The exact outlines of a package are unknown. A swap for Jimmy Butler — a far better defensive player at this stage, even at age 35 — would make financial sense, but would likely be a downgrade.
Would Golden State cobble together other contracts to make the money work? Would the Warriors overpay restricted free agent forward Jonathan Kuminga so they could include him in a deadline deal for James? Time will tell.
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