LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

Lebron James will be 41 this season. Yall tripping

 

I honestly think the media spin is just that anc they are blowing this up mainly because Lakers and LeBron drive traffic on an otherwise slow news day. LeBron is a high maintenance diva but he’s earned it. Paul is posturing but there’s not much wiggle room here for them if at all. Rumors are already floating that Savannah is making it clear to LeBron she thinks it’s about time for him to hang it up.

There’s just a lot against a move here to me and while anything can definitely happen I expect him to be around come fall.

 

It just screams “Please pay attention to me”

 

I’ll just repeat the rumor is his wife is ready for him to hang it up in one or two seasons.

I expect the fair well tour this season or next. It will naturally come down to how well his body holds up IMO.

 

Dallas bound. His 2 best buddies are waiting.

 

Sure. I’d trade him for Cooper.

 

thompson/washington/gafford gets real close salary-wise, lol. nico would be burned at the stake, lol. slick could switch allegiances with lebron/AD/kyrie/lively all on the same squad!

 

Yeah. Crazier things have happened (I mean someone traded Luka Doncic) but I can’t see the deal for him.

 

You mean to tell me a team doesn't want to potentially blow up their team for a 40 year old who might retire in a year?

 

i don't understand the six player stuff. i mean, to just add lebron to everyone on your team, sure. but plenty of teams have a couple large contracts who could be moved for lebron and their team would improve.

like, cleveland's issue is the aggregation due to the second apron, but deandre hunter, jarrett allen, and like, dean wade gets pretty close, i think (okoro would have done it). given that cleveland isn't going to be able to keep that team together long-term, is that really that huge a price to be able to trot out mobley, mitchell, garland, and lebron in a year where the only other team with a lot of talent is ny?

same with the knicks--like lebron was way better than anunoby last year. mitchell robinson played 17 games for you last year. you wouldn't move those two to have towns, lebron, bridges, brunson, and hart? i think you'd be nuts not to, tbh.

but whatever; it's too bad lebron thinks we suck. he can walk in FA next year (taking the dramatic paycut he refused to take here, of course).

 

IMO, this is a situation where both sides are right.

LeBron is still 2nd team All-NBA and a top 15 player. Those dudes get max dollars, period. You can say he's 40, getting older, not playing much defense, etc., but if we're talking value, he was a top 15 player last season. I think the problem here is LeBron won't get any better so you can't develop him as if he's a younger max player. That's where a lot of this 'LeBron isn't worth the max' comes from because for your team to get better, you're going to have to fully rely on the other dudes on the roster. A 40 year old LeBron isn't going to be making improvements next year.

And I know I will get flack for this but IMO, if the Lakers had kept AD, they would have had a better chance at winning a title this season (assuming AD never got injured). What the Lakers missed was AD's size and defensive intensity in the paint. Randle feasted on the Lakers... He wouldn't have against AD.

Luka's clearly a better asset but the Lakers were rolling before Luka got there and AD was simply a better fit. It was tough for the Lakers to try and fix their frontcourt being undersized with a dry center market and not enough to offer. Obviously, in hindsight, that Mark Williams trade should have been made. We all saw Hayes get pushed into the starting center role... I'm sure internally, the Lakers knew they were screwed there but had no choice.

Lakers are also on the right to want to prioritize Luka. At the end of the day, the LeBron experiment (7 years) resulted in ONE title. That's less than what I expected. It's perfectly fine for the Lakers to admit that it might be time to move on from LeBron and build around Luka. LeBron isn't what Kobe meant to the Lakers so there's no shame in being upfront to LeBron and stating that the plans for both sides might differ.

I would not be upset if LeBron demanded a trade. But I do believe the Lakers can still make it work by getting a competent big, some shooters, and some quality role players with younger legs. Let's not forget, we still have Luka, a top 3 prized asset in the league... There are options out there with or without LeBron.

 

LeBron James' Friend Hints At King James' Next Team; Rips Lakers Fans For Being Ungrateful

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/article/lebron-james-friend-hints-king-143444951.html

 

ask out then. or muzzle your pals and your agent.

 

LoL at Friend.Maybe Yahoo is bored because club world soccer championship isn't exiting as they anticipated,Free agency rumors are just randomly true ,and free agency didn't start yet

 

So Lane is hinting today that we might purposely choose Lopez over Ayton because we may want to retain future cap flexibility. If LeBron heard that was going to be the mindset this summer (letting DFS walk, choosing stop-gaps over better players due to years, likely not trading the 2031 first), then I get why he did what he did yesterday. It would be supremely frustrating to be 40 years old, still playing at an All-NBA level, on a team with Luka but the front office is making moves like that.

 

I'm struggling to understand, what would be Ayton's incentive to do a multi-year deal instead of doing a 1 year (or 2 year with PO) at the full MLE? Makes more sense for him to take a prove-it deal next to Luka, Lebron, and AR to cash in next year. I'm not seeing how choosing Ayton limits future cap flexibility.

 

yeah, unless we're really just doing only one-year deals, which is a bit wild to me. like, if we got to february, and it really wasn't working out, AND we were sure we needed the extra 15 million, we could find a way to dump it. but that's a lot of IFs.

as it stands, we only have 81 million committed after next year. even with reaves's cap hold, i'm pretty sure we'll have max space should anyone actually be available (these days, nobody is).

they can't be THAT gun shy just because of vando, right?