LeBron James Trade Talk Shouldn't Worry LA Lakers amid NBA Rumors Before Free Agency
Trade winds are (sort of) swirling around LeBron James.
You might assume, then, that this development has rocked the NBA and turned the basketball world on its head.
It hasn't. In fact, it's tough to tell how much mental energy the Los Angeles Lakers even need to give this.
For those nestled under a rock, James picked up his $52.6 million player option Sunday, and his agent, Rich Paul, paired that announcement with some words designed to pressure the Lakers into improving their roster as much as possible.
"LeBron wants to compete for a championship," Paul told ESPN's Shams Charania. "He knows the Lakers are building for the future. He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all."
Paul said more, but the gist was all the same: Give James a championship-caliber roster, or he might want out.
For most of James' legendary career, this kind of development may have broken the internet. And while it certainly has folks talking now, there isn't some pedal-to-the-floor frenzy of franchises scrambling to bring him onboard.
There has been some speculation about potential landing spots—James joining the Dallas Mavericks has "some buzz," per Lakers insider Jovan Buha—but as far as a trade market developing, it's been...well, crickets.
"To be sensitive to LeBron who's considered one of the greatest of all-time, there isn't [a trade market]," ESPN's Bobby Marks said on Get Up. "And here's why. He's making $53 million, he's in the last year of his contract, he's 40 years old. And I talked to numerous teams yesterday and asked that same question, 'would you give up basically the farm, basically you'd have to give up four or five players to go get LeBron James for one year.' And the unanimous answer was no, they wouldn't."
In essence, teams with the sort of win-now talent needed to justify splurging on James don't have the amount of expendable contracts needed to match his pay rate in a trade.
Take Dallas, for instance. The Mavericks only have two players making more than $20 million next season, Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving, who are perhaps the two biggest reasons why Dallas might be somewhere James wants to play. So, getting him on the team would effectively destroy the supporting cast around them, requiring a package of something like Klay Thompson, Daniel Gafford, PJ Washington and Max Christie, plus whatever draft compensation L.A. would seek out.
Would the Mavericks really want to fork over that much? Would the Lakers want that many players in return? And would James feel any closer to contention than he does in L.A., where his team just won 50 games and snagged the West's No. 3 seed?
A James trade just doesn't make sense—not to the Mavericks and not to any other potential trade partner, either.
And, frankly, it wouldn't make sense to James either. He has family and business ties to Los Angeles. His son, Bronny James, is literally on the Lakers' roster. James has expressed a desire to finish his career with this franchise.
Plus, the Lakers really aren't "building for the future."
They have a younger centerpiece now in Luka Dončić, but his window to win is wide open, and L.A. needs to convince him he can do that here so that he'll extend his contract. The Lakers were even willing to fork over a small fortune of assets for Mark Williams to fill their void at center back in February before nixing the deal over worries about his long-term health.
This all feels like a leverage play by James, yet he doesn't hold the same leverage he did in the past. With no obvious threat of leaving and the organization focused more on Dončić than James, these trade winds shouldn't elicit much (if any) reaction from L.A.
