LeBron James is officially a 76er.
The 41-year-old basketball superstar has signed his two-year, $8 million contract with Philadelphia, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Sunday, bringing a conclusive end to the sweepstakes that kept the NBA community on its toes for the past few weeks. The team waived guard Dalen Terry not long before.
As Charania mentioned in his initial Friday report, the second year of James’s agreement includes a player option, meaning he could still decide next June that he’d like to retire (or he could even hit the open market once more, though he has said that is not going to happen). On Sunday, however, Charania added that the King’s final deal also includes a 15% trade kicker.
What’s that, you might ask? It's simple, really. A kicker is the percentage of a player’s salary that is given as a bonus in the event he is traded, which, in layman’s terms, just means that a player gets extra cash if he is dealt to a new team. This extra payday is typically coughed up by the original team.
In ‘Bron’s case, then, the Sixers would have to pay up if they wanted to send the future Hall of Famer to another franchise.
Now, considering James is playing on an incredibly cheap deal, a 15% windfall (1) wouldn’t be much compared to what he is used to, and (2) wouldn’t do much to ease the pain of a bombshell trade. Moreover, it's not really enough to prevent the Sixers from wanting to trade him, anyway.
Why LeBron James’s 76ers deal features a trade kicker
So why would he include it? Well, he is not eligible for a no-trade clause in this instance, as he does not have the required four seasons with his current team, nor did he sign this two-year/player option deal with his former team. So the 15% kicker, however minuscule, is sort of the best he can do to try and dissuade Philadelphia from dealing him for whatever reason, and also maybe get himself some extra money in the process.
Considering how carefully he made this decision, as well as the impact he still makes on the court, James very much deserves to decide where he’d like to play out his career. But if some other team offered Philadelphia an unbelievable deal for even half of a season with the King, or if perhaps the fit just isn’t working out, who is to say the Sixers wouldn’t dump their newest star in exchange for a nice haul? All of a sudden, you get to thinking it could happen. (For what it’s worth, it couldn’t happen until Dec. 15, 2026, just in case you were curious.)
In short, a LeBron trade is a possibility—even a tiny one—and the kicker would seem to signal that that is on the 41-year-old's mind, as well.
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