Brian Windhorst on a Potential LeBron James Trade for the Cavaliers – Sports4CLE, 7/3/25

Brian Windhorst on a Potential LeBron James Trade for the Cavaliers – Sports4CLE, 7/3/25

Brian Winhorse, ESPN’s national NBA analyst, initially shot down any thought that LeBron could be traded from the Los Angeles Lakers as he’s now on a final year of his contract. Um, instead he thinks there’s a small chance LeBron could be traded.
I’m not 100% sure. And that is because my conversations over the last three days have crystallized that the Lakers are essentially viewing LeBron as an expiring contract. And that may sound like a tossoff statement, but that’s not insignificant. LeBron has never been an expiring contract. Quite literally, never in his 23-year career, over the nine contracts he’s signed, over all the different teams he’s been on, he’s never been on the last year of his contract. He’s never been 40 years old. He’s never not been the franchise player on his team. Um, the Lakers and LeBron, whoever wants to spin their side of the story, I’m not sure what happened, but the Lakers and LeBron did not have substantive discussions about extending his contract, which every team LeBron’s been on for 20some years has wanted to have substantive conversations about extending his contract. And what happens to expiring contracts in the NBA? They’re viewed as trade pieces. So for all those reasons, you know, the money, the fact that LeBron and Luca are still a very formidable duo, the fact that the Lakers are not done with their off season, the fact that trading him is crazy, the fact that this is being built around Luca and they’ve got to maintain their cap sheet and all of those things, everything that makes sense, but I’m just unlocking the door because I’m not as convinced as before as is of its impossibility. So again, we’ll continue to uh monitor that, see if the Cavs have an interest in bringing LeBron back for part three. Um, we’ll continue to monitor that in in the days and weeks ahead.

Hear what Brian Windhorst had to say on the possibility of LeBron James being traded by the Lakers.

Watch Sports4CLE Monday-Friday live at 4 pm ET on Cleveland.com.

You can leave a voicemail for the show at (216)200-6650.