By Harrison Faigen
Normally, a player opting into a contract would be a pretty cut-and-dry piece of news signifying that they are remaining with their current team. As he has been wont to do throughout his career, however, LeBron James and his camp found a way to create some drama around his latest, ahem, decision, to pick up his $52.6 million player option with the Lakers. LeBron鈥檚 agent, Rich Paul, announcing through Shams Charania that his client would be picking up his option to remain with the Lakers through the 2025-26 season would not have generated much intrigue under normal circumstances, but it was Paul鈥檚 on-the-record comments to the ESPN scoopsman that raised some eyebrows. As yours truly broke down yesterday, the natural question following those comments about picking up his option but also… evaluating his future? … is enough to make one wonder if James had just soft-launched a trade request while avoiding getting fined by the NBA for it. In a later interview with longtime King Khronicler Dave McMenamin of ESPN, Paul attempted to clarify that James is not currently demanding a trade… but didn鈥檛 exactly shut down the idea that he would accept one if it was the right opportunity: There is a lot there, so let鈥檚 break it down, quote by quote. McMenamin got this statement from Paul right out of the way up front: OK, so that should clear everything up, right? LeBron is staying a Laker? Well, no, because… After clarifying that James was not demanding a trade… McMenamin went on to summarize that the Klutch Sports CEO hardly offered a full-throated declaration of his biggest client鈥檚 commitment to Los Angeles: Wait, no 鈥渟ubstantive鈥 conversations with the four teams that called you about trading for LeBron James? But you did have conversations? With four teams? About their interest in trading for LeBron? And what constitutes substantive? Who are the four teams? We don鈥檛 know any of that yet, but McMenamin continued summarizing his chat with Paul: Again, he did not say focused on playing with the Lakers. Do the Lakers have a championship-caliber roster? If James isn鈥檛 sure about that, why did he pick up his player-option instead of becoming a free agent? Was it to maintain his no-trade clause and make it so he didn鈥檛 have to take a massive paycut to move teams in a marketspace where almost no teams have cap space? In short, there were a lot of chances for Paul to quiet any speculation that LeBron may work to head elsewhere, but he apparently did not take the opportunity to do so. Continuing, from McMenamin: It remains to be seen if signing Jake LaRavia while losing Dorian Finney-Smith to the Houston Rockets does or doesn鈥檛 look like a championship-caliber roster to James and Paul, but it鈥檚 probably safe to guess that it doesn鈥檛. Where that leaves the two sides as LeBron looks to compete heading into his 23rd season in the NBA is anyone鈥檚 guess, but it seems clear that (at-best) he and Paul want to apply pressure to newly promoted Lakers president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka, and at-worst are agitating for the team to admit this is a gap year as they look to restructure around Luka Doncic moving forward, and move James on to let him go compete as a sign of respect for their partnership. Which way that push and pull ultimately goes is one of the biggest potential dominoes left to fall as the NBA offseason enters full swing.