LeBron James Discussion: Not Returning To The Lakers

Let him go. Too much bad karma with Harden, Paul and LBJ and a gutted roster to do anything. Not talking prime Heatles here now. Paul and LBJ up there in years. Lakers hopefully can bring in George and resign Randle and have LeBron's 35 million for favorable deal with Randle or fair market value, and other needed pieces. I'd be much happier and that's what's important. PG and our rising stars and status in the league will have started the FA ball rolling again for the Lakers.

 

i'm confused. the link posted provides the logistics, and nothing's preventing the opt-in trade. in fact, the author makes some assumptions (houston doesn't have to max or even keep capela, for example) that seem like he's trying to stack the deck against it.

houston trades gordon and anderson and 2 1sts for lebron.

cleveland moves gordon into someone's cap space, probably netting a high 2nd in the process. cleveland dumps the bulk of love's salary for a 1st or more (love still has value, and teams have money to burn). so they've shaved like, 30 million off their cap number even while taking anderson's big deal. they're going to bottom out, anyway. stay out of the tax and you're good.

getting off love's salary is easy, and it's pretty much the way to get under the tax. it doesn't make sense...until lebron leaves.

anyway, it's not a longer shot than the lakers getting george and lebron, which is more likely than the lakers just getting lebron, imo.

i do agree with the suggestion that if all this goes down, the lakers are likely to make a bid for capela (and maybe love, too).

 

If we ended up with Gordon in a 3 way to help facilitate LLLLL to Houston, I could think of worse scenarios

 

Abeer: If Houston gets off of Anderson's contract before the deadline, then its pretty obvious they have something in the works for LaBron during the summer. And this Houston scenario becomes plausible to a degree. I know that Deng is not playing, but Anderson is their equivalent of a Deng contract and we all know how hard its been to move it.

Here is the thing that seems to be overlooked. Its honestly not that easy. Melo would be a Rocket right now if it were. Think of all the factors that have to work out. Gilbert and the Cavs and their current relationship with LaBron and his represention. Morey and the Rockets and what they're willing to give up. A 3rd team to absorb cap and be incentivized. Possibly a 4th team that absorbs cap and has to be incentivized. CP3's willingness to take a considerable paycut to facilitate an opt in and traded LaBron.

Now look at the variables for the Lakers: LaBron's representation and the the Lakers cap space. That's it!

The thing that Houston has that LA currently doesn't have are stars. But that is also their undoing, cause with those hefty star contracts, Houston's bench will be decimated with a LaBron trade and again who's going to incentivize team 3 and possibly team 4 to take on bad contracts...don't expect Gilbert to. Meanwhile the Lakers and their plethora of team friendly deals will allow LaBron to walk onto the team and we still have plenty of depth, granted no stars.

LaBron playing with another star is where more variables come into play for LA and that is what doesn't make it as simple anymore. However, a Deng stretch and renounced Randle still gives LA 58M to spend in free agency. If LaBron is willing to sacrifice roughly 5M and PG only 2M, then that means both can fit into that space just shy of their true max. However if LA finds a way to move JC's team friendly deal for expirings this deadline, then that means we'll have nearly 71M in cap space to give both LaBron and PG their true maxs with nearly 6M to spare.

In the Houston scenario, LaBron is probably more willing to join other stars, but there is nothing easy about making that a reality.
In the LA scenario, LaBron doesn't have to deal with Gilbert and can join LA with George if they are willing to sacrifice some of their max. If not, then the only hard part is moving JC for expirings....that's it!

 

What would we need to do in order to sign George, re-sign Randle and bring in Eric Gordon and Capela? Is it do able? Still possible if we stretch Deng in the off season or we would have to completely remove his salary and say trade JC?

 

- Jordan Clarkson is our version of Eric Gordon. We don't need him.
- Julius Randle is our version of Clint Capela. We don't need him.

 

Yeah except, we are leaving out the fact that Love and Kyrie aren’t top 10 or arguably top 20 players.

Last time he played with players the level of Harden and CP3 was in Miami, and even though they had vet ring chasers fill out the roster, it wasn’t so much of a big deal. I think Harden, Lebron, CP3 is a good enough combo where their supporting cast doesn’t need to be great.

 

Better shooter. We desperately need a sharp shooter imo... Clark is expendable. But just talking out loud haha

 

People really want Eric Gordon? The guy is shooting 42%, and 33% from 3.

 

I hadn’t really paid attention to his stats. Some players look unstoppable playing us, and that can stick in your mind and be deceiving. Given those facts, I’d pass and admit he’s a perfect fit for Mike Dan Tony

 

haven't we all seen how useless cap space is when you're terrible? cleveland is going to be terrible. they need picks, not space. this is how the nets are trying to handle things (and not how the lakers are doing it). anderson's only an albatross if you wanted to spend that money elsewhere. if you're just going to bottom out, it doesn't matter who's getting what salary. the knicks weren't in that position this summer, nor were the teams houston was trying to dump anderson on (e.g., portland, iirc).

svtzr beat me to it, but no, right now he's dealing with kevin love being far and away the second best player on the roster (and nobody else being that good). it's why he's not signing up to join the lakers' 30-win squad. we don't even have a player as good as love right now.

harden's done fine with paul. and lebron, like kobe, can play lots of different ways. i'm sure he'd fit in just fine.

 

A great post on what you guys have been walking about for a while (LLLLL to Houston):

 

no one has ever done this^

 

I don't think Lebron will go ring chasing to Houston. I think at this point in his career, he's more worried about his legacy. I think he'll ditch the 1+1 contracts he's been signing and will instead sign a 4 year max contract. He gets that here. The LA media, and front office, will prop him up so much. "Bringing relevance back to the purple and gold."

I'll hate every second of it but I see that happening more than Houston.