As far as basketball settings go, it was hard to top the buzz Saturday night inside Crypto.com Arena.
LeBron James, on the brink of becoming the first player in NBA history to reach the 40,000-point plateau, arrived hours before his Los Angeles Lakers tipped off at home against the Denver Nuggets.
Entertainment industry impresarios such as Jeffrey Katzenberg, Peter Berg, Byron Allen and Lemuel Plummer filed in through the VIP entrance. Stars from film and sports — Kate Hudson and Dyan Cannon, Novak Djokovic and Magic Johnson — dotted the stands.
Even James himself was flanked by a documentary crew banking footage for his upcoming Netflix series.
During a break in the action midway through the second quarter — LeBron had scored the ninth point he needed to make history a few minutes earlier — James winked in the direction of Lakers governor Jeanie Buss, located in her second-row seat across from the home bench. It was a custom the two shared during his first couple seasons in L.A. that James dusted off for the historic night.
And, after the game, the Lakers commemorated the moment on their theater-style marquee in the player tunnel: 1st NBA Player Ever. Congrats LeBron James. 40,000 Points Scored.
James, who has privately questioned whether Laker Nation would ever fully embrace him after seeing him battle their beloved Kobe Bryant for so long, acknowledged the way the fans and the franchise showed up for him.
“Much respect and much loyalty to the Laker fan base for showing me that love,” James said. “Being the first player to do something, that’s pretty cool in this league.”
The Lakers and James can pair on another first this offseason. Should he agree to a new, multiyear contract, L.A. will be guaranteed to be the first and only team that James will have played eight consecutive seasons with, eclipsing the seven-year start to his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
As rocky as James’ relationship with the Lakers has appeared at times, it’s hard to imagine any other franchise providing the elements that aligned Saturday night in L.A.
But James, nearing 40 years old and in his 21st season, has options as he approaches free agency for the fifth — and perhaps final — time in his career.
The next contract
James has made more than $482 million in salary in his career and will become the first player in NBA history to pass the $500 million mark next season, by either opting in to his $51.4 million salary, signing a new contract with the Lakers or, in a less likely scenario, signing with another team.
James said Feb. 3 that he has not yet made a decision on his player option. He has until June 29 to decide to opt in or become a free agent.
Because of the over-38 rule, no team, including the Lakers, can offer James a contract for more than three seasons if he elects to become a free agent. That restriction should not matter; of the past six contracts James has signed, five have been for three years or less.
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 could follow the path from prior years and sign an even shorter deal with the Lakers. A two-year, $104 million contract with a player option on the second season would allow James to hit free agency again next summer — perhaps 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 Feb. 18, referring to Bronny declaring for the 2024 NBA draft. “We’re going to go through the whole process. He’s still in-season now. He has the Pac-12 tournament coming up. … We’re going to weigh all options and we’re going to let the kid make the decision.”
The early entry deadline to declare for the 2024 draft is April 27 at 11:59 p.m. ET. If Bronny did declare, he would have until May 31 at 11:59 p.m. ET. to withdraw his name. He did not appear in ESPN’s latest 2024 mock draft and is projected to go 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, regarding Bronny’s status for the upcoming draft.
The Lakers can also offer something no team can — a true no-trade clause. Players are only eligible to negotiate a no-trade clause if they’ve been in the league for at least eight years and have played four years for the team offering the contract. No-trade clauses can’t be added to extensions, which is why James wasn’t eligible to add one when he signed his latest extension in 2022. (Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal is the only NBA player who currently has a no-trade clause.)
If James opts in to his contract, he would be eligible to sign a two-year, $112 million extension with the Lakers starting Aug. 18. It would be his third time extending with Los Angeles since he initially signed 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.”
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 fail to reach the first round for the second time in three seasons or do not get past the first round? Los Angeles is 34-29, 2.5 games behind the sixth-place Phoenix Suns.
The only playoff teams flush with cap space are Philadelphia, Oklahoma City and Orlando, but that would require James relocating to a new city and a different roster for the sole purpose of chasing his fifth championship.
As ESPN’s Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne reported, Warriors owner Joe Lacob reached out to Buss before the deadline to express interest in acquiring James in a trade. The talks went nowhere because of James’ desire to remain with the Lakers.
Revisiting such a deal would be complicated for Golden State and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr.
The Warriors have $174 million in salary next season, including $37 million in the non-guaranteed salaries of guard Chris Paul and center Kevon Looney. That figure does not include guard Klay Thompson, who will become a free agent this summer after making $43.2 million in 2023-24.
A sign-and-trade involving James and Thompson would hard cap Golden State at the $178.9 million first apron, making it difficult for L.A. to re-sign Thompson. James could opt-in to his contract and then work out a trade, but Golden State would not be allowed to send out aggregate contracts if James’ $51.4 million salary pushed the Warriors over the second apron.
The Knicks, however, have the financial flexibility below both aprons to trade for James without losing Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby.
New York has five players (Julius Randle, Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson, Bojan Bogdanovic and Donte DiVincenzo) earning a salary between $11.5 and $30.3 million. They also have up to eight tradable first-rounders to include in a deal.
“During my free agency period in 2010, it was one of the teams that I looked at,” James said before the Lakers played at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 3. “So I’ve had that thought in my career.”