7:56am: According to Wojnarowski (via Twitter), the Lakers and agent Rich Paul are still discussing the possibility of James accepting $1MM or so below his max in order to allow the team to operate slightly below the second tax apron and to have a little extra roster-building flexibility.
7:30am: LeBron James is returning to the Lakers on a two-year, maximum-salary contract that will be worth approximately $104MM, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link), the deal will include a second-year player option and a no-trade clause.
The NBA’s all-time leading scorer, James had his 20th consecutive All-Star and All-NBA season in 2023/24 at age 39, averaging 25.7 points, 8.3 assists, and 7.3 rebounds in 35.3 minutes per game for the Lakers. He posted an impressive shooting line of .540/.410/.750 and appeared in 71 games, his most in a season since he arrived in Los Angeles in 2018.
While James declined his 2024/25 player option in order to become a free agent, there was never any real belief that he’d leave Los Angeles or the Lakers, who selected his son Bronny James with the 55th overall pick in last week’s draft. However, there was some uncertainty entering free agency about what LeBron’s new contract would look like.
A report ahead of the start of the free agent period indicated that James would be open to taking a pay cut if the additional cap flexibility would help the Lakers land an impact player like James Harden or Klay Thompson. However, the expectation was that LeBron would still seek the max if the players on his short list were unattainable.
A follow-up report suggested that DeMar DeRozan was also on that list, and there has been no indication that DeRozan has a deal lined up anywhere yet. But with the Lakers moving forward on a max deal for LeBron, it may signal that they’re out of the running for the Bulls free agent. As Bobby Marks of ESPN notes (via Twitter), James’ new contract projects to put L.A.’s team salary slightly above the second tax apron, so the club wouldn’t be able to acquire a player via sign-and-trade or use the full mid-level exception without some significant cost-cutting.
The league-wide maximum salary in 2024/25 for a player with at least 10 years of experience is about $49.2MM, but a player is always permitted to earn up to a 5% raise on his previous salary. That means that James, who made about $47.6MM last season, will have a starting salary of $49,987,718 on his new contract. The 2025/26 option will be worth $53,986,735, for a total of $103,974,453.
The agreement puts the four-time MVP on track to become the first player in NBA history to surpass the $500MM mark in career earnings, tweets Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press.
James will become the second NBA player to hold a no-trade clause for the 2024/25 season, joining Suns guard Bradley Beal. A player is eligible to negotiate a no-trade clause if he’s signing a free agent contract, has at least eight years of NBA experience, and has spent at least four years with the team he’s signing with. LeBron previously had a no-trade clause in his contract during his second stint in Cleveland.
James had been the No. 4 free agent on our top-50 list.
Pay cut, my @$$ LIBron once again lying to make it seem like he’s different than the actual greedy guy he is.
Who’s he taking a pay cut for? Ain’t no high level dudes left to sign. They missed on the top tier group
Demar
Demar still thinking he is a 40 million dollar a year player is why he isn’t a laker.
They never had anything more than a MLE for Demar so even if he wanted more than $15m a year they couldnt get him without a S&T since they were over the cap before LeBron signed. Now they can’t even do a S&T for Demar
Demar reportedly wants to sign a 1 year deal to hit the market next season
I’d be very surprised if DeMar would even consider taking the MLE.
Yeah DeMar is trying to avoid a 1 year deal or the MLE. He only takes either of those if thats where his market ends up going.
Exactly smh people love to hate!!!! I like the Los Angeles Lakers roster but I don’t love it. I think they need to find a way to trade D’Angelo Russell.
Ok first of all he never came out and said that. So actually you would be the liar here. Woj reported he allegedly told the Lakers this but on the condition obviously of being able to add an impact player. There is nobody like that out there unless you consider Demar but he wouldn’t be a great fit on offense and is a defensive liability at this point. Calling someone a liar because you lack basic reading comprehension skills is a very brave card to play.
First Lebron hating is boring, and making up reasons to hate him is annoying. First, you have no idea what the contract says and second there’s nothing to stop him from agreeing to restructure if an opportunity arises.
Finally how many times has a player not named Tim Duncan, taken less money to help his team?
Duncan and Dirk were the only two I could think of who took well below market value.
Pretty much. Outside of legacy deals, stars pretty much never take pay cuts for the sake of winning. Ray Allen did it to ring chase with the Heat (and because of a lot of Drama with the Celtics/Rondo at the time), but sticking with their team and taking a pay cut is rare.
Actually, Barkley and Hakeem both did it with the Rockets back in the day. Didn’t work out (adding Pippen was a disaster), but they did try. But outside of those four, I can’ think of anyone else.
MJ for yrs …..
MJ not even once.
Wasn’t MJ signed at nearly the maximum at the time he signed that deal? NBA salaries spiked during his contract not before.
You are correct. Jordan did sign a slightly below market 8 year deal. The key here is eight years, that’s on him. He took the security of a long term deal over the potential of more money. As soon as that contract was over Jordan deservedly took two massive one year deals.
James Harden (kind-of)
I know this will be an unpopular comment with the anti-LeBron crowd, but I don’t care. The truth is no team could ever pay LeBron what he’s truly worth to a franchise because of the cap rules. Whatever he gets, his real value would always be more.
It was reported he offered to take a pay cut to help the Lakers acquire three specific players, none of which are now available. So he’s taking the deal he’s entitled to. None of that is being greedy.
You sound Iike another LeBron James hater and it’s sad. That’s all y’all do is hate on greatness. He’s hands down the second best player to ever play the game and he deserves every penny. The Los Angeles Lakers made a great deal!
We all saw this coming. He’s gonna buy mount Rushmore and try to carve his own face.
Bar the windows! What a scoop! LeBron stays with marquee team.
Now that make you feel sorry for laker fans of him being able to go through all that drama again next year. So next year he can hold Lakers for ransom if he wants them to do a certain thing. Laker should have demanded second year is a team option not player.
Lol I guess you’re too young to remember those Kobe contracts at the end of his career huh? Lol casual just yapping away
So you don’t care if Lebron does it all over again threatening to leave the lakers and get them to do what he wants? What if he demands they play Bronny as a starter would you be OK with it or say let Lebron go?
LeBron is not going to do that. You are, once again, believing media narratives instead of what LeBron actually does.
You never know this is the same guy that rode 3 coaches out of town because he wants to be the coach and GM. If lakers don’t make the playoffs will he just get up and leave? If Bronny has a bad first year and stuck in G league will he get mad and take him and Bronny somewhere else. Not media hype but history with leBron.
The only questionable firing of LeBron’s career was Vogel (and I personally see it as justified given that he made the exact same mistakes with the Suns last season). Ham did a bad job. Paul Blatt did a *worse* job despite having a better roster. The rest were either fired when he was already gone (Brown was fired when he was a FA, Lue left partway through the season after LeBron left Cleveland for the second time), or, in the case of Paul Silas, because of an ownership decision that was unpopular with everyone on the team save Eric Snow. If you actually watched those teams, you’d know that.
“He wants to be the coach and GM” is another media narrative. Being surrounded by idiots like Rob Pelinka and Jeannie Buss (let alone all the BS he dealt with in Cleveland) tends to make you look bad by association.
Ham did not do a bad job. Lebron was breaking up team chemistry and refusing to follow Ham coaching advice. The team played well when LeBron was injured. The big test is where Bronny plays. If he is on the team to just watch from the bench it will show Lebron is managing the team. Bronny should be in the G league for most of the year. Nothing against him but its rare for a 2nd round pick to make the team out of training camp.
The Lakers were .500 without LeBron, and Ham playing both him and Davis too much wore down their rotations.
As for Bronny, no doi he’s not NBA ready yet. But acting like he’s going to start at the Point for the Lakers outside of occasional cameos for publicity/experience, as you were doing, is the literal definition of nonsense.
One of the things Ham tried to do is slow down Lebron’s and AD’s minutes but Lebron and AD was not for it later in the season. There is 0 way Bronny starts a NBA game this season. I am talking about him sitting on the bench getting garbage minutes. He should be in G league most of the season.
Nope. He started claiming he would early in the year and did the exact opposite.
It’s likely he will be, tbh. Teams sign late-2nd round picks to guaranteed deals all the time for tax purposes. The Warriors did the same thing last year with TJD.
TJD started in the G league last year. Took him almost half a year to get in the NBA. Santos fit Bronny’s talent more. Santos has spent almost 2 years in the G league with his raw talent before he saw playing time.
TJD spent four games in the G-League and played 69 in the NBA, but sure, okay.
As for Santos, he and Bronny are almost opposite types of players. Bronny is defense and shooting. Santos is a slasher who needs the ball.
I expect Bronny to play at least half the season in the G-League, and to not really do much as a rookie. That’s not the point. He was signed the way he was for luxury tax purposes as much as he was to keep LeBron happy, if not more so.
You spend an abnormally unhealthy amount of time obsessing over this man. I’m pretty sure he’s happily married currently
This reminds me of the summer of 2014… when Lebron asked Wade and Bosh to opt out of their near max deals so he could sign a max deal with the Heat, but keep their core together… a month later he was “coming home”…. the man is never to believed on anything basketball related. (he did this so the Heat couldn’t respond to him leaving, which he 100% planned to do… Carmelo Anthony would have signed with the the Heat if he knew it was possible that summer.. they had to settle for Luol Deng instead)
The Heat were always trying to sign Luol Deng that year, but they wouldn’t have signed Mcroberts, Granger, and 1 other I’m not thinking of, if they had more awareness of the situation, and also, Wade wouldn’t have ended up getting the personal saltiness (for completely justified reasons) a couple of years later
Here I just feel like he’s stuck there b/c of his family, and they’re just wasting the last several years of his career with coaches that have no understanding of how to use a modern NBA rotation, or just bad roster building…
If he’s stuck there, he should take the maximum possible
I’m a loyal Lebron super non fan. But…
Lebron is one of those rare players that he has never been paid enough. Love or hate he’s great business! Do I want to see players take pay cuts? Absolutely not. I do want to see players earn the max deal. Lamelo, Barnes, Cunningham, Zion, Trae, and Ben Simmons come to mind.
Not surprised by this at all. Lakers didn’t have a clear path to offer more than the mid-level without dealing a salary.
The only salaries of value are Vincent, which likely would have cost a first and a pick swap at a minimum, Austin who they wouldn’t want to give up, and Russell who doesn’t have a tonne of value other than to the Lakers. Stars are no longer willing to take a discount to play with LBJ any longer.
Looks like Bron is going to spend the balance of his career in mediocrity.
Lakers just keep making their hole bigger and bigger.
Well at least they got the Bronny thing done. IT would have been a horrible off season if they did not get a guy who cannot play in the NBA and was only used for a PR campaign.
Great work Lakers, you really solidified that 9th place finish.
Lebron was gonna take $1million less…that is hilarious.
LeBron took a slight cut in pay to pay for Bronny outrageous contract! Even if they got a third star, this team is a year older and cannot defend! The Lakers are a mess because of LeBron constant meddling! Lord help the NBA if he ever becomes an owner because he knows nothing about how to build a team! Anyone look at Michael Jordan’s tra
Close record? Enough said!
Id love to take that kind of paycut. Lakers will continue to be a mess with him around.
Man, he’s really just letting them waste his career
LeSelfless
LeTeammate
LePaycut
LeDaddyDaughterDance
I love my Lakers and LBJ, your offer of taking a sliver of a pay cut to allow for roster flexibility shows your lack of leadership here. What an absolute joke. You will never be considered as a Laker great! This team is a train wreck with a bleak future!
Seldom do superstar players take less than the max. People love to point out Duncan and Dirk and while they technically did they both has unique circumstances as to why.
When Duncan turned 36 and was up for a new contract he technically took a very large pay cut but he was in his twilight and definitely in the decline. He has Average 15.4/9 that season and 13.4/8.9 the season prior. He was still a very good player and his defensive IQ was off the charts but he just wasn’t a max level player anymore.
Nowitzki took some pretty good discounts at the end of his prime but more than made up for it at the end of his career. He absolutely deserved his contract though after all the years he’d given the Mavs.
When LeBron went to Miami he Bosh and Wade took pay cuts to make it work under the cap because Miami didn’t quite have enough cap space to sign all three to max deals. It has an effect on other player’s with their respective teams. Owners and GMs would tell these guys “Well LeBron’s not even making the max, why should you?” LeBron swore he would never take less after that.
has any other seventh place team ever received this much attention ?
Yes, the Lakers the previous 12 years as well
The guy is a billionaire and still trying to milk it.