In terms of basketball settings, it was difficult to beat the atmosphere Saturday night inside Crypto.com Arena.
LeBron James, on the verge of becoming the first player in NBA history to achieve 40,000 points, arrived hours before his Los Angeles Lakers’ home game against the Denver Nuggets.
Entertainment industry heavyweights like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Peter Berg, Byron Allen, and Lemuel Plummer entered through the VIP entrance. Stars from entertainment and sports, including Kate Hudson and Dyan Cannon, Novak Djokovic, and Magic Johnson, lined the stands.
Even James was accompanied by a documentary crew filming video for his upcoming Netflix series.
During a lull in the action midway through the second quarter, after LeBron had scored the ninth point he needed to make history a few minutes before, James winked to Lakers governor Jeanie Buss, who was sitting in the second row across from the home bench. James revived a tradition the two had established during his first few seasons in Los Angeles for the historic occasion.
After the game, the Lakers remembered the milestone with a theater-style banner in the player tunnel: “First NBA Player Ever.” Congrats, LeBron James. 40,000 points scored.
James, who had privately questioned whether Laker Nation would ever fully embrace him after seeing him battle their beloved Kobe Bryant for so long, praised the fans and the franchise’s support for him.
“Much respect and much loyalty to the Laker fan base for showing me that love,” James was quoted as saying. “Being the first player to do something, that’s pretty cool in this league.”
This offseason, the Lakers and James can work together to achieve another first. If he agrees to a new, multiyear contract, Los Angeles will be the first and only team with which James will have played eight consecutive seasons, surpassing his seven-year stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The following contract
James has earned more than $482 million in his career and will become the first player in NBA history to reach $500 million next season, either by opting in to his $51.4 million salary, signing a new contract with the Lakers, or, in a less probable scenario, signing with another team.
On February 3, James stated that he has not yet made a choice on his player option. He has until June 29 to decide whether to sign or become a free agent.
Because of the over-38 rule, no team, including the Lakers, may offer James a contract longer than three seasons if he chooses to become a free agency. That restriction should not matter.
James has signed six contracts, five of which are for three years or fewer.
Those short-term deals have limited the total value of James’ recent contracts, meaning a new three-year maximum deal — either for $162 million with the Lakers or for $157 million with another team — would represent the largest total contract in James’ career, eclipsing the $154 million, four-year deal he signed with the Lakers in 2018.
James might follow suit from previous years and accept an even shorter contract with the Lakers. A two-year contract worth $104 million with a player option on the
A second season would allow James to join free agency again next summer, maybe when his son, USC freshman guard Bronny James, enters the 2025 NBA draft.
“It’s up to him, it’s up to the kid,” James told Turner Sports on February 18, alluding to Bronny’s declaration for the 2024 NBA Draft. “We are going to go through the entire procedure. He’s still in season now. He has a Pac-12 tournament coming up. We’ll examine all of the choices and let the kid make the final decision.”
The early entry date for the 2024 draft is April 27, at 11:59 p.m. ET. If Bronny declares, he will have until May 31 at 11:59 p.m. ET to remove his name. He does not appear in ESPN’s most recent 2024 mock draft and is expected to rank 39th in ESPN draft expert Jonathan Givony’s 2025 mock draft.
“I don’t value a young player getting into the lottery as much as I do getting him on the right team in the right developmental situation,” Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Saturday, when asked about Bronny’s draft status.
The Lakers can also provide something that no other team does: a true no-trade clause. Players can only negotiate a no-trade clause if they’ve been in the league for at least eight years and spent four years with the team proposing the contract. No-trade clauses cannot be added to extensions, therefore James was not able to include one when he signed his most recent contract in 2022. (Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal is the lone NBA player with a no-trade clause.)
If James chooses to renew his contract, he will be entitled to sign a two-year, $112 million agreement with the Lakers beginning August 18. It would be his third extension with Los Angeles since signing in 2018.
The offseason in L.A.
Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka elected not to make changes to the roster before the trade deadline.
“You can’t buy a house that’s not for sale,” Pelinka said Feb. 8. “We spend a lot of time looking for ways to use assets to make our team better. But the right move wasn’t there.”
The 2024 offseason will present another opportunity for Pelinka and the Lakers to reshape their roster around James and Anthony Davis.
The Lakers’ tradable first-round picks will increase from one (2029) to three (2024 or 2025, 2029 and 2031) starting the night of the draft, giving them more options if an All-Star such as Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young or Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell becomes available. Los Angeles also has tradable contracts, with 10 players earning a salary between $1.9 and $19 million.
“In terms of what was available at the trade deadline, we had one first-round draft pick,” Pelinka said. “It was our only sort of hook to fish with. And this summer in June, we, at the time of the draft, we’ll have three first-round draft picks to look for deals.”
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Paul also told ESPN’s Wojnarowski that Bronny’s draft position isn’t as important to him as the fit he would find through the draft process, which should free Pelinka to use all of the first-round picks in potential trades without feeling the need to preserve one to select the USC combo guard in order to satisfy his father.
Paul said that James would be “head-over-heels excited” if his son ended up on the Lakers “organically,” but that messaging didn’t read as a mandate by any stretch.
The Lakers will have their own first-round pick if the New Orleans Pelicans elect to defer until 2025. The Pelicans have until June 1 to keep or defer, and a decision will likely not happen until after the draft combine in mid-May.
If the Pelicans keep the pick, the Lakers would be allowed to trade their 2025 first-rounder starting on the first night of the draft.
Swinging for a big deal at the expense of draft capital is nothing new when James is under contract. Cleveland, Miami and Los Angeles have traded away 23 total future first-round picks during his tenures with those teams.
One difficulty with the plan to find another superstar is the new collective bargaining agreement, which restricts how much high-spending teams can add to their rosters.
Starting April 15, the Lakers as currently constructed are not allowed to take back more money than they send out in a trade. They are also walking a financial tightrope just below the salary cap’s second apron, which they must avoid to aggregate contracts in any trades. L.A. is at the $180.9 million first apron, $8.7 million below the $189.6 million second apron and projected to be a repeater tax team for the fourth consecutive season.
While Pelinka has highlighted the Lakers’ three first-round picks available to trade in late June (they also have five years of first-round pick swaps to offer), they are still not flush with draft equity compared to the eight teams — Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets, San Antonio Spurs, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers, Toronto Raptors and Utah Jazz — that each have at least five first-rounders to trade.
James’ options outside the Lakers
During All-Star Sunday in Indianapolis, James dismissed the notion that he is unhappy in Los Angeles, despite a second straight season competing for a spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament.
“I am a Laker and I’m happy and been very happy being a Laker the last six years and hopefully it stays that way,” James said. “But I don’t have the answer to how long it is or which uniform I’ll be in. Hopefully [it] is with the Lakers. It’s a great organization, with so many greats. But we’ll see
But what happens if the Lakers miss the first round for the second time in three seasons, or if they do not go past the first round? Los Angeles is 34-29, 2.5 games back of the sixth-place Phoenix Suns.
The only playoff teams with cap room are Philadelphia, Oklahoma City, and Orlando, but James would have to relocate to a new city and roster only to pursue a fifth championship.
According to ESPN’s Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne, Warriors owner Joe Lacob contacted Buss prior to the deadline to express his interest in getting James via trade. The talks stalled due to James’ wish to stay with the Lakers.
Revisiting such a transaction would be difficult for Golden State and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr.
The Warriors’ salary for next season is $174 million, which includes $37 million in non-guaranteed salaries for guard Chris Paul and center Kevon Looney. That figure excludes guard Klay Thompson, who will become a free agency this summer after earning $43.2 million in 2023-24.
A sign-and-trade involving James and Thompson would hard cap Golden State at $178.9 million for the first year, making it tough for Los Angeles to re-sign Thompson. James could opt into his contract and then negotiate a trade, but Golden State would be unable to send out aggregate contracts if James’ $51.4 million salary put the Warriors over the second apron.
However, the Knicks have the financial flexibility underneath both aprons to trade for James while keeping Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby.
Five of New York’s players (Julius Randle, Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Donte DiVincenzo) make between $11.5 and $30.3 million. They also have up to eight tradable first-round picks to offer in a deal.
“During my free agency period in 2010, it was one of the teams that I looked at,” James stated before the Lakers’ game at Madison Square Garden on February 3. “So I’ve had that thought in my career.”
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