LeBron James Discussion: Not Returning To The Lakers

We've already gotten a taste of it in 2023 when LeBron was being celebrated for all time scoring record, and AD was pissed and wanted them to focus more on winning games. There was Westbrook drama too, so it was a turbulent regular season that ended 43-39 in 7th in the play in. But Westbrook was traded that year, the new team came together, closed out the regular season 10-2, beat Memphis and Golden State in the playoffs, and made the conference finals before losing to Denver.

So I guess what I'm saying is that, there could be a lot of spectacle during LeBron's retirement season, but they should still be able to make a postseason run and contend if the team is good enough.

 

If Bron took any discount here or didn't sign deals that only benefit him, he would have won more rings here

 

Very possible, but we'll never know

At some point a player has to choose the $ or winning a championship

 

Oh yeah like when specifically? What players are we talking about?

We might have won more rings, if we were willing to spend more money too.

 

How many guys were getting rings, taking big paycuts? This is an interesting topic.

 

Absolutely. Was just following Wino's point that the FO would look bad if he won a ring elsewhere after taking a paycut. He didn't do it here, so I don't think the FO would look bad for something he didn't do here and would benefit us.

 

Again who took these paycuts and won these chips? When...Who? Or is this just a theoretical musing?

 

Duncan

 

20 years ago.

 

Is that it, Nowitsky and Duncan once each? Did the Spurs win the title that year? Am curious what % was given up of each's salary those years.

 

duncan won at least one ring after he had taken his paycut. dirk didn't. malone didn't. i think this is slick's point, but i'm not sure i get why it matters. the point is whether you put your money where your mouth is.

and the other slick point is that owners don't always do that, either. and that's true. we let like 20 million just evaporate because we didn't want to pay as much taxes after we excised russ.

but again, this is deflection to me. it's about what you want. if you want the money, fine. but you can't say that the most important thing is titles and then be unwilling to work out contractual stuff to make it more likely.

so you can point to dirk doing it and it failing, but this doesn't matter to me. there's a reason dirk will always be a folk hero in dallas, and it's because he said he wanted to compete, and he sacrificed his cash to do it.

all that said, i'm not sure i can point to the exact thing lebron could have done. like, i guess we could have signed valanciunas last year if he took the cut he said he would (which i've always doubted would happen for reasons i've pointed out elsewhere--mostly that he was banking on dlo opting out), but i don't know if that was going to get us a ring.

my annoyance is when he's demanding the franchise hamstring the future for meh upgrades while he wouldn't do anything on his end. you look out for your interests, ok. the franchise will look out for its own. and trading for like, demar derozan's corpse using half of our assets ain't it.

 

I think that is why he is playing out his contract. IMHO, the Lakers either want him to take a pay cut or go play elsewhere. And guess what ..... he will have to take a paycut to go anywhere else. I think the Lakers want him to see his market value and then say, we will offer you what you can get elsewhere AND give you that chance to win a ring. He might go elsewhere to try to win one but if he does, a good portion of him leaving will be because of his ego. I am good with however it ends. It is between him and the Lakers FO. I can see many sides to the issue and don't really care how it works itself out. The ONLY thing that would bum me out is if we sold out Luka's future for a couple of final seasons with Lebron' farewell tour.

 

Given that we got Luka, yes I think adding Valanciunas would have been enough to get us a ring. Then again, I think that Ayton or Mark Williams or any half decent center would have been enough. Last year was ripe for the taking. Houston wasn't ready, Denver was worse than currently, and OKC barely pulled it off due to other teams' injuries. So, yes, I think that would have been enough.

Now, we couldn't know last summer that we would be getting Luka...but even then, Valanciunas or Klay or whoever might have been enough. Because, again, the title was right there for the taking last year. The team we had with AD before the Luka trade might even have been enough.

 

maybe. though ironically, lebron got hurt in the playoffs anyway. which is another reason not to go whole hog into the lebron timeline.

 

Hey guyz, I'm going to work out at 4:49 AM. Plz pay attention to me!!!!

 

Maybe, but butterfly effect. That might not have happened if he had been playing next to a real big man, if he didn't log as many minutes, or if he and Rui didn't have to play so much C.

Related to injuries due to playing too many minutes - I still blame D'Antoni for blowing out Kobe's Achilles. Kobe's minutes in the games leading up to that:

47:37
47:04
42:32
47:20
41:06
48:00

Then he blew out his Achilles at 44:54 min played of the next game, having played every minute so far with 3 min left to go that he would have also played. Those minutes are ridiculous. 7 straight games of 41+ minutes, with 4/6 being 47+ and the injury game going that way as well?! That's just stupid.

Back to the current Lakers, I'm not sure that signing Valanciunas would have meant going whole hog into the LeBron timeline. The origin of the discussion is if LeBron had taken a discount in order to sign him, so no other assets would have been given up. The only extra cost I see is $10m on the books for 1 more year in 2026-7. That's something, but not huge, and wouldn't have meant going all-in on the LeBron timeline imo.

 

yeah, two separate threads converged for me. i wanted us to sign valanciunas with money lebron gave up, but i will once again claim that i'm pretty sure lebron wasn't going to take the 15-20 million dollar paycut it would have taken to give jonas his 9 per.

yes, yes, i know jonas was on the (very short) list, BUT i still believe lebron was only on board if it meant small sacrifice--he wanted the FO to dump salary to get closer. that dump would have cost assets.

but we agree that lebron should have taken a cut if he was going to b**** about the quality of his teammates. i've never wavered on that.

 

Yeah, you're consistent. I gotchu.

 

stein's read is the same as mine, except i think the plan is and has been to go back to cleveland. i think he might just take the vet min to go there, too.

on the other hand, i agree with lane when he disagrees with stein about rich paul's statement. it was definitely a reaction to the fact that no 1+1 was offered. it wasn't meant as a play to get moved, but it was definitely meant as a statement of displeasure. not a nothingburger as stein seems to imply.

unrelated to lebron: glad he threw cold water on the "lopez chose the clippers over the lakers" stuff. he didn't. and that was always an incredibly stupid take. tell some of your podcast friends this. i believe we probably contacted both capela and lopez in case DFS stayed and told them they could start and have the tpmle. both players got more than that elsewhere, but they never got an offer from us because we moved on. both players should probably thank us, as i think our interest (real or perceived) probably earned them some extra money from conference rivals, btw.