The big question on the minds of many when it comes to the Los Angeles Lakers is whether LeBron James will be with the team once the new season starts. When he exercised his player option for the 2025-26 campaign, his agent, Rich Paul, made a cryptic statement that seemed to, at a minimum, open the door to him asking to be traded.
Paul said that James “wants to compete for a championship” and that he and James want to evaluate what is best for the superstar at this point. The team reportedly didn’t offer him a contract extension beyond this coming season.
Some have speculated that James is upset about Luka Doncic displacing him from the top spot in the Lakers’ pecking order. Others, such as Fox Sports radio personality Doug Gottlieb, feel the Lakers are simply tired of dealing with James and his camp (h/t The Cold Wire).
“Why would the Lakers go from ‘we want to go all-in on LeBron’ to selling the team, and they don’t even call him?” Gottlieb said. “My best guess is the ‘LeBron thing is a lot.’ … It wears you down. There’s a shelf life on it.
“I think there was an attempted coup at several times of Rob Pelinka of the Lakers’ front office. If you go back to what Pat Riley said when he left the [Miami] Heat, what Phil Jackson said he had heard about Pat Riley’s experience when he was with the Heat, which is he brings in all his guys and he tries to take over your shop.
“…I think the Lakers are just done with it.”
Gottlieb referenced multiple personnel decisions that were apparently made at the behest of James and his camp, including the failed 2021 trade for Russell Westbrook, and then the decision just a few months later to trade Westbrook.
There was reportedly an offer on the table that winter for John Wall that would’ve cost L.A. Westbrook and a future first-round draft pick, and when the team refused that offer, Paul was reportedly upset, although he denied it. Wall sat out all of that season and played his final NBA game only about a year later, and at that point, he was a shell of the player he had been a few years earlier.
Then came last summer, when the Lakers drafted James’ son Bronny, then shuttled the younger James back and forth between the G League and the NBA, even though the younger James was clearly not deserving of any minutes in the big league.
The elder James was on hand on Saturday for L.A.’s summer league game versus the New Orleans Pelicans to watch his son. He was approached about doing an on-camera interview during the game, but per ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, he refused and simply said, “I ain’t got nothing to talk about.”