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The Los Angeles Lakers are in a strange place. On the one hand, their desk was painted as a complete mess with the entire organization hanging on a thread. On the other hand, they are a free agent or a major asset to be a legitimate candidate for the title of champion, mainly for a very simple reason: they have LeBron James.
But for how much longer?
Bill Plaschke from The Sedano Show Los Angeles Times and Dave McMenamin, of ESPN, both have reason to believe that the Lakers are skating on a thin ice with LeBron, who might want to part prematurely from the Lakers if they failed to form an alignment for the championship in the very near future. Here are the comments to note from the show:
Bill Plaschke: I hear them saying that they feel free will, and if they feel an exchange, which I do not know what is likely, but if that happens, they have big problems with LeBron. I mean that the LeBron era could be over before it starts here.
Dave McMenamin: All the people I talk to associate LeBron, they hold the rope for now and all they can do is be positive because it will be a crucial five week break. But on the other hand, if it's July 10 in Los Angeles and that's Nic Vucevic [that the Lakers have had to settle for]or whoever does not meet the criteria for selecting a star to be an immediate candidate, you can not imagine where things could go.
Plaschke: Yesterday, I heard this for the first time, someone from very connected said, "If they smell good, LeBron will say either I get out of there, or pull me out of there, or that the Lakers could just as easily bring it outside here. "So it's huge.
Before going further, let's point out that LeBron is under contract with the Lakers for at least the next two seasons (the last year of his four-year contract is an option for players, meaning that he may terminate his contract after three years in the summer of 2021). If he became unhappy and for whatever reason wanted to leave Los Angeles, the Lakers would not have to grant him his wish. Technically.
But we know how it goes. We know the pressure of losing a star player for nothing, and we certainly understand the power and influence of LeBron and his power camp. If they want to go out, and they make it known, and they start pressing their buttons that give panic, the Lakers will feel a serious heat.
Beyond that, let's look at it practically. Yes, negotiating with LeBron seems outrageous, but if the Lakers do not add anyone important this summer, they will not be championship candidates. They might not even be a playoff team. They could, theoretically, bail out next season and wait for Anthony Davis to join them as a free agent in 2020, but that 's a great card.
If Davis moves elsewhere this summer and likes this enough to sign long-term – for example in Boston or New York – what are the Lakers doing then? Risk of spending the contract term of LeBron, who was supposed to place them in the league championships, becoming a second-division playoff team with nothing important to show in the summer of 2020, so he could go for nothing?
If the Lakers are not doing much this summer, they must simply start thinking beyond the LeBron James era, as premature as it may seem after the first year of a contract. This does not mean that they have to do something. But they must think about it. And if LeBron and his camp start insisting even more on the question, well, you can read the handwriting. To say that it's a great summer in the land of Purple and Gold is a euphemism.
Keeping LeBron just to win a few more games and possibly going to the first or second round of the playoffs would he deserve to abandon an exchange program that could absolutely store their future?
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