The NBA season came to a close barely more than a week ago, but the league has continued to buzz over the past several days in the wake of the 2025 NBA draft, and the many free-agent deals that have taken place since then.
Over the weekend, the story that ruled the landscape had to do with LeBron James and his latest deal with the Los Angeles Lakers.
LeBron opted into his existing contract by exercising a player option worth about $52.6 million for the 2025–26 season, keeping him tied to the Lakers for his 23rd NBA season. However, he also put out some interesting quotes online, saying through his agent, Rich Paul, that he "values a realistic chance of winning it all" next year.
"We understand the difficulty in winning now while preparing for the future," Paul continued. "We do want to evaluate what's best for LeBron at this stage in his life and career."
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6)
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6)
© David Richard-Imagn Images
In other words, it seems increasingly likely that LeBron forces his way out of Los Angeles this offseason and facilitates a trade to a team more equipped to contend for a championship in 2025-26.
Where might that be, though? According to ESPN's Bobby Marks, there are few destinations who both fit that "win-now" criteria, and would be willing to give up the necessary assets to land King James.
"There isn't (a market for LeBron) and here's why: He's making $53 million, he's in the last year of his contract, and he's 40 years old," Marks said on 'Get Up.' "I talked to numerous teams yesterday, basically you would have to give up 4 or 5 players to go get LeBron James for one year, and the unanimous answer was no they wouldn't."
Of course, saying that there is no trade market for James is different from saying that no team wants to add James to their team. The problem here is that he only has one year left on his contract, and it would take a massive haul of players in order to trade for him.
Marks mentions that should James reach an agreement on a potential contract buyout with the Lakers, things may be different.
"The stakes change a lot if LeBron James were to ever become a free agent and get some type of buyout," Marks continued. "There, you would have 29 teams lined up for him."
Whether or not that happens, we will see. In the past year, we've witnessed the Lakers be involved in a monumental trade that landed Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks, so it's clear that some teams are willing to do things that we couldn't comprehend as "smart business" when there are franchise players up for grabs. Will it happen this summer with LeBron? Time will tell.