LeBron James is still a free agent. He’s either going to sign with the Cavaliers or Heat or Warriors or 76ers or some other team. The NBA can’t wait for him to make their decision so they can finalize the 2026-2027 schedule because you can’t have opening night or Christmas without LeBron James, whether he likes it or not.
While we wait for James to announce his decision his agent, Rich Paul, is podcasting with Max Kellerman. Paul broke down all the teams James is considering, but if he knows what is going to happen, he’s not explicitly letting on.
In today’s episode Kellerman brought up a recent PTI podcast episode that was mislabeled which made it sound like James had chosen the Warriors. They then discussed what it would mean if James did go to the Warriors and wondered how many nationally televised games the Warriors with LeBron James would get.
Paul first throws out the number 60 before saying he was being sarcastic. Then he says half their games should be nationally televised with Kellerman agreeing that “40 sounds realistic.”
Rich Paul drops an absolute gem about The Warriors & Lebron's Free Agency: "First of all, you realize the NBA Schedule isn't out yet, why isn't it out? The NBA would have to give the Warriors 60National televised games. Steph, Klay, and Dray and when it was still Lebron, Kyrie,… pic.twitter.com/E895At0mF7
— JayTakes (@SportsWithJay0) July 17, 2026
LeBron James national TV games in ’26-’27
Is 40 games on national TV really realistic? It turns out that yes, it is.
Last season the Lakers, Warriors and Thunder were tied for the most nationally televised games. Each team had 34 games on national broadcasts on either ABC, ESPN, NBC, Peacock or Prime.
The year before, during the ’24-’25 season, the Lakers had 39 and the Warriors had 36. The Celtics and Knicks each had 34. And during the ’23-’24 season the Warriors had 41 and the Lakers had 40.
Looking back a bit further to the time Paul mentioned in the video, the Warriors had a league-high 31 nationally televised games in the ’17-’18 season. The Rockets had the second-most with 28 and then the Thunder and Cavaliers each had 27.
Wherever LeBron signs, they’re going to have about half their games televised, which is a curious decision when you consider he’s missed between 11 and 27 games in each of the last six seasons. Stephen Curry missed 39 games last season. Some discretion might be the right move for the NBA considering how many bad headlines have been caused by stars missing nationally televised games in the last few years.