FIRST TAKE | “KING James to Mavericks!” – Stephen A. says LeBron James could get traded this season

FIRST TAKE | “KING James to Mavericks!” – Stephen A. says LeBron James could get traded this season

evangelist LeBron opted into his $52.6 million contract to stay with the Lakers. His agent Rich Paul dropped a cryptic statement that LeBron wanted to play for a title contender and now we wait and watch with popcorn. So far, the Lakers most notable signing and frankly only signing is forward Jake Lorravia. I had a take on this unportsmanlike on ESPN radio and ESPN 2 6 to 10 a.m. Eastern Monday through Friday that uh well you need to hear. I am telling you right now as we sit here today, it feels like LeBron James is going to get traded. I have never felt this way in my entire basketball fan life or media career that he was going to get traded. All signs are pointing towards this possibly happening. And I know every NBA insider is going to say, “You’re ridiculous. This is not going to happen.” And I’m sure they’re probably right and I’m probably wrong. But if I didn’t know the history of LeBron James and you didn’t know the history of LeBron James and we’re just looking at what we know since Sunday and what the teams are that we are guesstimating he could want to go to, it feels like he’s going to get traded. Well, I listen to a podcast called the Hoop Collective um a lot with Brian Winhorse, Tim Bonds, and Tim McMahon. Like maybe too much. And so I have now followed the theory of actions over words. And while there are no actions from the teams he possibly could get traded to and no actions from the Lakers, I am now trying to connect dots. Wendy, David Dennis, I see you. Uh, do you believe LeBron could get traded? Go ahead, David. First of all, first of all, first of all, let’s do this. First of all,
we need deferring. First of all, you went to the tease by saying there’s a take coming up that you just have to hear, and it’s your take. You teased your own take by saying something that happened. I was very uncomfortable with that. I have
Second of all, don’t disrespect the anniversary of the Wendy fingers by doing this. Wendy had there was an actual trade going on and you’re over here talking about LeBron. LeBron, where is he going? There is no trade for LeBron. It does not work. There’s no way there’s like Wendy, Tim, they’re the nicest guys I know. I’m not. It’s a lunatic thing to say that LeBron is getting traded and I I don’t see a pathway for it. I don’t see a pathway for the Lakers that they’ll want something that that they’ll get back for LeBron. I don’t see LeBron saying I’m having no trade clause. I’ll go to a team that’s going to empty out their cupboard for me. It just it’s not happening. LeBron is going to be with the Lakers. I am sorry to the take the Lakers. I would bet you being right. Just for further explanation before Wendy and Bonds probably destroy me, let me try to explain what I mean here. So, he left it open in a way that I’ve never seen him leave it open. Okay. In addition, you talk about the teams that hypothetically could put together a deal for him that he would approve with the no trade clause going to. And I think about teams like Golden State. I think about Dallas. I think about New York, maybe back to Miami. Less so about Cleveland because of the difficulty of the deal. And those teams have done literally nothing to jeopardize the chance of acquiring him. The Lakers have done nothing to actually improve their chances of him wanting to be there. In addition, it would be really easy for people to say, “Well, those teams you just mentioned are saving any pieces they have for their big move for Giannis. I don’t believe he’s going anywhere.” I listen to the hoop collective. They have told me as of right now, don’t believe yet that Jaylen Brown is going anywhere. Connect dots. Is there a chance, Wendy, that LeBron James could get traded? I’ll go to Bon Temps first. I want to wait.
Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Uh, I mean, you said in your take that we could probably just say you were ridiculous and wrong. I I mean, what I will say is that in the NBA after the Luca Dantage trade, I have stopped ruling anything out as an absolute. However, if you look at this situation, as we’ve been talking about for the past 3 days, there are very few ways to get a LeBron James trade done. And I I would say it’s close to a 0% chance or as close to a 0% chance as you can get for a variety of reasons. One being he has a no trade clause. So to get him traded, LeBron has to agree to a trade. The Lakers have to agree to a trade. And the other team that he’s going to has to agree to a trade. On top of that, he’s owed $52.6 million this year, which he opted into, by the way, on Sunday. If he wanted to go somewhere else, he very easily could have just opted out of his contract. He did not. And three, the Lakers are looking forward to building around Luca Dodic in the future. making some trade that cuts into their cast space next year, does anything to jeopardize their chances of building the best team around Luca Donuch when he can resign with the team next summer or after he signs a contract extension one month from now. That is the only thing this team can focus on. And any LeBron trade is all but certainly going to hinder their chances of doing that to the best of their ability. So, I’m not ruling anything out simply because we have learned in the NBA not to rule anything out. But no, the trade is not happening and I look forward to whatever Brian is either not going to say at all or say a little bit in response to all of this.
All right, Wendy. So on Sunday when Rich Paul made these comments when it was announced uh via shams that he LeBron was opting into his contract. Obviously those comments could be taken a lot of different ways. They were nebulous almost by design. The when the idea of a trade came up, I slammed the door on it and said I I no I I first off LeBron wants to be a Laker. if he didn’t want to be a Laker and he opted out. He has a no trade clause. Everything that Bontemps just said. Over the last three days, I have unlocked the door. I wouldn’t say that I’m opening the door. I would just say I’ve unlocked the door. The door I slammed and locked on Sunday. 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.
Here’s the fundamental truth about the Lakers. Obviously, we spend a lot of time talking about LeBron James because he’s one of the greatest players, if not the greatest player to ever play basketball. He’s going to go down in history for all these accomplishments that nobody’s probably ever going to match the amount of time he’s played, the productive career he’s had to the point where he’s now in his 40s and we’re still talking about him as an allNBA player. But the truth is, for the first time in his career, I was at Madison Square Garden on the Saturday night in late January when the Lakers stunned the world and traded for Luca Donic. Did it right after they beat the Knicks was one of their best wins of the season. saw Rich Paul after the game. LeBron and AD were there after the game or AD wasn’t there. He was hurt, but LeBron was there. Lakers are feeling great. AD was coming back from an injury soon. Lakers are feeling really good about their team. The moment the Lakers made that trade, the LeBron James era in Los Angeles ended and the Luca Donuch era began. And everything they’ve done since then has been geared toward having a team built around Luca Donic. Three or four days later, they made a trade for Mark Williams to get Luca Donuch, the lob threat center that he has had so much success with in his career. Now, they immediately rescended that trade because they didn’t like the physical on Mark Williams and said we didn’t want to actually get him anymore, but the action there was clear. We want to get a piece that fits with Luca Donuch going forward. That is the priority for what the Lakers are trying to do. What they have done since then is again to look forward to 2026 when Luca Donic will either be a free agent on July 1st of 26 or he will have op he will have extended his contract on August 2nd, a month from now. So everything we’re talking about here with LeBron, to Brian’s point, the fact he’s on an expiring contract, that’s the best thing that the Lakers could have because what matters to them is making sure Luca Donuch has his priorities set, not LeBron James.
I think LeBron’s coming back this year. Will he end his career in the Lakers? I think it’s a more interesting and sort of nebulous question that we have here. I think the only way anything happens is if Luca Don himself walks into that front office and says LeBron has to go and that I just don’t see that happening. I don’t see him uh they seem to be working well together. I don’t see the pieces uh needed for Luca to still feel like they’re a contender if they lose LeBron. But if the, you know, he asked the Lakers to bend the knee to him, they will do that. But I don’t think I don’t see that happening anytime soon. As long as Wendy’s unlocked the door, I just want to bring up one idea. Looking at a LeBron James hypothetical trade as a salary dump. I am forever convinced that even though they won a title with Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors, that Messiah, who was then in charge of the Raptors, did that as part of a salary dump because he no longer wanted to pay Demar D Rozan that big dollar figure and he was able to get Kawhi Leonard back. There is an argument to be made that some of these teams could actually get off of big contracts that may work for the Lakers theoretically that they don’t want to pay long term and mask it by the hypothetical of acquiring LeBron James. Just an opinion on that. The East has a ton of question marks heading into next season. So, who will be the beast of the East when it’s all said and done? Shocking takes coming up. Plus, the Thunder put the league on notice, capturing their first title. But after a flurry of offseason moves in the West, who is the biggest threat to their throne? [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. [Music] Edchech. Made the music. I know. Hey, back up. [Music] They go crazy. Heat. Heat. What? You let me get that over here.

FIRST TAKE | “KING James to Mavericks!” – Stephen A. says LeBron James could get traded this season