Per sources, LeBron has signed a 4 year, $154 million dollar contract to play for the Lakers. Not much of a surprise.
ugh
now i gotta hate on him
don’t want to
have to
Did LaVar Ball give his approval?
Hope we trade his sons always injured ass.
His deal works out to nearly $40 million a year. That’s some serious cash.
About what the Rockets just gave Chris Paul, who I am sorta surprised didn’t jump ship to go play with him. I’m also surprised that LeBron didn’t wait until the Lakers snared Kawhi Leonard. Or until Ball got shipped out to Phoenix for goodies to send to SAS for Leonard. Guess he really wants to kick start that whole movie career thing.
Ugh, you thought NBA officiating was obnoxious before…
It is an obscene amount of money. But frankly, much less than he could command with no maximum contract provision.
Yep, but money will never be an issue for James. His lifetime deal with Nike is rumored to be north of a billion in its entirety. Just in known endorsement deals, he was closing in on $50 million annually a couple years ago. Hell, KD’s deal with Nike is $30m/year just coming off his MVP season. By all accounts, LBJ hasn’t been trying to outspend that, even with the significant charity work he’s done.
I just want Space Jam 2.
4 years? Man, that dude’s already sitting out games at the end of the season in order to have enough gas in the tank for the playoffs. He’s optimistic or something.
Not So. Look at the number of minutes he played this season.
He played in all 82 regular season games and every playoff game last season. Was the real MVP, but that award has never been very meritocratic. Although this move to LA was pretty obvious months ago, I think it’s a brilliant move. He won’t catch Jordan in terms of rings, but he could take 3 different teams to championships, with 3 different coaches. Jordan only won on one team with one coach. Plus Pippen was there for all 6.
Well, to be fair, LeBron hasn’t really won one without superstar “help” either, has he? I mean…witness this season. He almost could do it alone, but not quite. I imagine it would’ve been the same for Jordan.
I’m… puzzled. The path to a title in Los Angeles is VERY steep. If they don’t get Leonard they will be a six seed even with peak LeBron. To get a ring, he now has to fight through not just the Warriors, but also the Rockets, the Pelicans, hell, even the Jazz are probably better than the Lakers if they don’t get Leonard. He could have gone to Philadelphia and cakewalked into the finals for four years straight, and probably could have pulled Leonard over to join him, too. Not sure what drove this, unless it’s more about business than basketball ( and fair enough if it is!)
He has homes here and he likely listened to his wife.
Sure, and if that’s the reason, then good for them. But it is possible - obviously not certain but possible - that LeBron James will never play in another Finals, an outcome that would have been much less likely in Philly or even back in Cleveland.
I agree that no player can do it alone. That said, that Bulls team still made deep playoff runs during the years that Jordan took a break to play baseball. When Lebron leaves a team, that team turns into a lottery team.
ETA: Cleveland is now 500-1 to win the next NBA championship,
They have homes everywhere. At least, this was true of the Houston area when I worked in hotels, and got to see a lot of professional athletes. Texas is a very popular place for athletes to have homes.
(Why is he staying in a hotel when he has a house in the same area, you ask? I didn’t. Oh, and this is a general “he”: I’ve never met LeBron James.)
Me too, storyteller, me too. This makes sense if he has Kawhi (for the life of me, I will never spell that name right on the first try) Leonard, and maybe Paul George too. Then I was dreading, though that’s too strong a word, the specter of Chris Paul signing a new FA deal with the Lakers. That team (Bron/Leonard or George/Chris Paul) contends now.
Bron by himself? I mean, I like Ingram (Brandon, although what if Andre could shoot anywhere near 55% from 3 with more usage?), and Randle, Kuzma, and KCP, but c’mon. Isn’t that team worse than Cleveland?
He just bought one in Brentwood in 2017 for a cool $23 million and his two sons are apparently enrolled in that city :). Looks like it was off-season LeBron ground central and it is likely this move has been on his mind for awhile.
ETA:
Not IMHO, but we shall see. It’s maybe not a lot better, but they’re young and the Cavaliers are not. Plus they have cap space and Cavaliers with LeBron did not. If they can get Leonard this year all bets are off.
The Lakers right now are James, Deng, KCP, and a bunch of rookies, with an “incredible” $16 million in cap space. Without a massive trade, there’s not a ton of talent still available. Unless the Rockets figure it out, I don’t see anyone keeping the Warriors from the Finals for at least the next season, possibly two, unless the locker room completely implodes.
I don’t think LeBron’s legacy benefits from the repeated bouncing around in the chase for championships.
Bill Simmons made an interesting (to me) observation that the Lakers have had 7 of the top 12 players of all time on their team either at or very near their prime: Wilt, West, Magic, Shaq, Kareem, Kobe, and now Lebron.
Imho, this move was made with an eye towards his post-playing career.