After LeBron James and the Cavaliers lost to the Warriors in the NBA Finals, talk of Akron, Ohio, native leaving Cleveland for a second time in free agency after next season has grown. Adrian Wojnarowski of the Vertical has mentioned on his podcast that King James is interested in heading out west to join either the Lakers of Clippers.
Joining either team presents a unique set of obstacles and Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus examined which team makes for sense for the three-time NBA champion. Suiting up for the Lakers seems more viable financially as Pincus notes the team can make a series of moves to come up with James’ $35.7 million maximum salary. Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov — if there’s no trade interest — could be waived and have their combined $69.5 MM salary stretched out over five years at $13.9 million per season.
The Clippers, however, would have a tougher time financially, especially if the team retains Chris Paul and Blake Griffin this offseason. Paul, Griffin, James, and DeAndre Jordan represent a fierce group of talent but to make that foursome work financially, everyone involved would likely need to agree to reduced salaries. Either way, James possibly leaving Cleveland will involve a lot of hurdles that could stall or fully prevent a move out west.
Here are some additional tidbits out of the Pacific Division:
- Darren Collison is a free agent this offseason and the Kings‘ decisions in the NBA Draft with fifth and 10th overall picks will determine his future, Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee writes. The soon-to-be 30-year-old has been on five teams and demonstrated his capabilities of being a productive player but the Kings — who are looking for point guard help in the draft — may head in a different direction.
- In a separate Sacramento Bee piece, Jason Jones believes that the Kings should not take Skal Labissiere‘s strong numbers last season as a guarantee that the team is set at power forward. If an upgrade presents itself in the draft, Jones recommends that Sacramento pursue all available options.
I’m not completely sold on Skal to be their long term 4 there just yet. Kings should to Fox and Markannen and just bring over Bogdanovic to play the 3 or try Malachi there. Markannen is a floor spacer and already a better stretch big then Skal. I like Cauley-Stein’s versatility at the 5, he could switch on to small forwards,power forwards, and centers.
Half a year of play is definitely too short a time to make a long term projection on somebody like Skal, but boy was he impressive. I certainly wouldn’t do anything that would result in blocking any playing time for him in the near future.
He’s got a high motor, good post moves and turn around jumpshot. Could see him becoming a very good player but not an NBA starting power forward just yet. If I am the Kings there is no way I skip on a stretch big like Markannen who will be a marksmen from 3 point range. You put Markannen at the 5 or 4, Cauley-Stein can be switched around to either the 4-5, Buddy will be better and Fox running the show? They are on to something but again Bogdanovic coming over is what will make everything makes sense or Malachi being ready to contribute.
So every time he loses he wants to leave?
Pretty much
No everybody want to pay in big markets. They said next year. They haven’t lost anything for next year. They lost this year
Can you blame him? Kevin Love was a no show like always, 6 points 10 rebounds in a closeout game? Give me a break, he got nothing from the bench either. I dont blame him at all if he leaves.
He deserves ALL the blame! He handpicked all those bench players and got the owner to over pay his friends which put the team in the salary cap ditch. He will probably run away again. Jerry West recruits him to the Clips. That would be juicy!
Yea I guess you can blame him for choosing these players but you can’t blame him for Deron,Iman,Kyle, and Kevin’s performances. If they would have got a consistent 20+ from Love and 4-5 threes off the bench from Korver consistently they would have likely beat the Warriors but Lebron and Kyrie had to do too much offensively and got nothing from the bench. They need to let Deron walk and only bring Korver back on a reasonable deal. Shumpert needs to go also, he has yet to develop a consistent jumper and has not changed or developed anything to his game, Tristan also.
Agreed
Mark- as a journalist you have a duty to do your homework. It’s already been out and known that the “source” Wojnarowski, never actually wrote this about Lebron and the west. Somebody made a fake twitter using the Wojnarowski name to start spreading Fake news B.S and everyone picked it up without researching themselves.
The fake Woj tweet from this week said that LeBron had already decided to opt out and head to L.A. Obviously that’s not real, but before that fake tweet surfaced, the real Woj said on his podcast that there’s no guarantee LeBron will stay with the Cavs beyond 2018, and that one of the L.A. teams would likely be where he goes if he leaves. Other reporters have said the same thing.