LeBron James still hasn’t decided what’s next for him, but he did hint at a timeline for that decision in Thursday’s episode of the “Mind the Game” podcast.
“I’m still in the moment of just taking my time,” James said. “I haven’t even really thought about it too much. Obviously, I understand that I’m a free agent and I can control my own destiny — being here with [the Lakers] for the foreseeable future or if it’s going somewhere else.
“But like, I haven’t even really got to that point. I haven’t even taken
my family vacation yet, which is going to happen after Memorial Day. That’s kind of the thing at the forefront of my mind. But I think at some point in June, late June, as July rolls around, free agency starts to get going and as July rolls around and maybe into August, we’ll start to kind of get a feel of what my future may look like.”
There’s just one problem: The Lakers aren’t likely to wait until August for him to make a decision.
“If the Lakers don’t get a clear answer from LeBron by July 1, they may have to renounce his rights and say, ‘LeBron, we have to move on. We have to plan for next season,'” Brian Windhorst of ESPN said in response to that on Thursday. “And then that money would just come off of their books.”
So, if LeBron really is going to wait that long, then what the heck is going to happen?
Would the Lakers really renounce LeBron?
As Windhorst noted, LeBron will have a $58 million free agent cap hold cutting into the Lakers’ potential cap room until he re-signs with them, leaves in free agency or retires. The Lakers could have roughly $50 million in space if they renounce their rights to everyone except Austin Reaves (whose $20.9 million cap hold is the key to their offseason).
Even if the Lakers do plan to re-sign LeBron, they need to know his answer sooner than later. They aren’t likely to offer him all of their available cap space unless they strike out on their other targets. This summer is their best opportunity to pivot around Luka Dončić and they need to take advantage of it.
If the Lakers manage to re-sign him for, say, $25 million next season, that would leave them with $20-plus million in remaining cap space to spend before they re-sign Reaves. But if LeBron punted on that decision until late July or August, his $58 million cap hold would be sitting on their books the entire time. They couldn’t conduct the rest of their free-agent business until they reached a resolution on LeBron’s future.
Both LeBron and Klutch Sports superagent Rich Paul are assuredly aware of that. If LeBron truly does want to take that long before committing one way or another, he might be committing himself to a salary no higher than the $15 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception.
The Lakers are projected to have the second-most cap space in the league, per Spotrac’s Keith Smith, trailing only the Chicago Bulls. The Brooklyn Nets are also projected to have nearly $48 million in spending power, but they’re the only three teams above $30 million.
LeBron said on “Mind the Game” that he has no interest in joining a rebuilding team. Contending for a championship is the only thing that matters to him. The Bulls and Nets are nowhere near contending.
That leaves LeBron with three real options: re-signing with the Lakers, joining another team via sign-and-trade or taking no more than the mid-level exception (MLE).
But if he’s serious about contending, that means joining either the Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs, if he’s being honest with himself.
What are LeBron’s best options?
The Cleveland Cavaliers have to clear major obstacles just to get enough wiggle room under the first apron to offer LeBron the non-taxpayer MLE. Going back home and helping to guide this Donovan Mitchell-led core over the hump would be a storybook ending to his Hall of Fame career, but after watching the New York Knicks relentlessly hunt James Harden on defense, does he really want to join a team with such a glaring Achilles’ heel?
The same goes for the Golden State Warriors. Watching LeBron team up with Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler would be entertaining from a nostalgia perspective, but assembling three stars on the wrong side of 35 does not appear to be the way to win in the NBA’s second-apron era. Youth and depth win the day.
The LeBron, Luka and Reaves triumvirate did take off late in the season before Dončić and Reaves suffered the injuries that sent the Lakers off the rails. But on “Mind the Game,” LeBron said the Thunder “possess so much more talent” than the Lakers, whom he called “out-talented” in their second-round sweep.
Was LeBron throwing some shade at Lakers GM Rob Pelinka? Probably. Is he doing his typical passive-aggressive LeBron thing leading up to free agency, perhaps in part because the Lakers didn’t offer him a new deal last offseason? Almost definitely.
The thing is, he isn’t wrong. The Thunder do have significantly more talent than the Lakers…and just about every other team, for that matter. That’s one of the things that makes them so great and differentiates them from the rest of the league.
Jalen Williams, who made the All-NBA third team last season, missed six of the first eight games of the playoffs this year. The Thunder still managed to sweep both Devin Booker’s Phoenix Suns in the first round and LeBron’s Lakers in the conference semifinals.
The Thunder will have to win more without him moving forward, as he aggravated that same hamstring injury in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals against the Spurs. Luckily, they have Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell and Jared McCain all coming off their bench, all of whom have proven their ability to scale up in these playoffs.
They don’t have a Wemby, though. Only the Spurs do.
The Spurs also have a dynamic backcourt with De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper, and they have a ton of financial flexibility for now since all three of Victor Wembanyama, Castle and Harper are still on their rookie-scale contracts.
They can’t offer LeBron more than the non-taxpayer MLE unless they turn it into a sign-and-trade, but the Spurs could offer some combination of Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson and Luke Kornet, or they could try to swing a double sign-and-trade with Harrison Barnes and/or Kelly Olynyk.
Just like the Lakers, none of those teams will maintain that level of financial flexibility for an entire month after free agency begins just for the off chance that LeBron might decide to join them. If he doesn’t commit on July 1, they’ll likely move on to their other plans.
In the unlikely event that LeBron is willing to take a minimum deal, he could sign anywhere, anytime. But if he’s expecting at least the non-taxpayer MLE, he does not have the power to freeze the entire free-agent market like he once did during his prime. The rest of the league will move on without him.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.
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