San Antonio got significant assets for Leonard rather than letting him walk for nothing in free agency. Lakers would jump at the opportunity to trade LeBron.The one interesting wrinkle we have not heard yet is LeBron buying his way out of his contract so he would be an… pic.twitter.com/6rniChEtP9— LakerTom (@LakerTom) July 13, 2025
I don’t know how you can compare LeBron’s situation with Kawhi’s. Kawhi was 27 and entering his prime. LeBron is going to be 41. No one is going to gut their team for him. The most realistic trade would be the Warriors sending Butler. Jimmy has another year left on his contract so perhaps the Lakers could get a first out of the deal. But it’s hardly a big win for the Lakers. They have a better chance of winning with LeBron this year and they would still be hand tied next season with a 37 year old Butler on the books.
Even buying LeBron out would not make a lot of since, considering there isn’t any real difference makers left in free agency, especially for the amount of money LeBron would be willing to to give up for a buyout.
I disagree. Kawhi is the perfect example of a team making a 1-year rental for a shot at a championship that paid off. Any team trading for LeBron knows it’s a 1-year deal at this point in time.
I’m not in favor of the Laker trading LeBron but I think it’s getting more and more obvious that the Lakers are almost trying to get LeBron to request a trade. Now that they have Luka, the Lakers would like nothing better than to have LeBron ask for a trade so they would not lose him for nothing in free agency.
There’s no other reason why the Lakers would not be willing to go all-in to win a championship with 2 of the top 10 superstars in the league than they’re trying to get LeBron to request a trade.
The smart and right thing to do is go all-in to win this season while limiting moves to Luka’s timeline. The Lakers still have time to do that but fans are going crazy because they simply do not trust Rob Pelinka and Jeanie Buss. They still have enough control to fuck things up for good and ruin the relationship with LeBron.
Anyway, we have dead wood that we cannot just let walk without making a consolidation trade. We still need two more defenders. One to guard ones and twos and one to guard twos and threes. If we get that, we can still compete. We’ve made some good moves considering. Just hard to have any trust in Rob.
Tom, the Raptors didn’t sign for a one year rental. They offered him a 5 year deal at 38 mil per. Kawhi took the Clippers 34 mil 3 year deal with the promise that the Clippers would trade for his buddy PG. They wanted to keep him. LeBron is totally different. The cost of the contracts it would take to get LeBron would make a team worse and LeBron would veto the trade. As for consolidation trades, good luck swinging that without draft capital. By the way, consolidation trades need to happen earlier as most teams rosters are full now.
You say “teams” as if the Lakers have the leverage in where he goes. I assure you, they do not.
It’s simple. That’s why teams are reaching out to Rich Paul, not Rob Pelinka. Such a waste of mental energy…
There’s never been, nor will there likely ever be, anything like this. The dude is 41 with a full no trade clause so he can go to probably 1 team: Golden State. He didn’t want to go there midseason, hard to see him wanting to go there now. The Lakers are hoping for but one thing: the retirement tour announcement. That’s it.