Lakers coach Darvin Ham recently expressed excitement about LeBron James inking an extension with the team, as relayed by Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints. James agreed to extend his deal through the 2023/24 season, also owning a $50.4MM player option for the 2024/25 campaign.
“It’s huge, man,” Ham acknowledged. “It’s huge. LeBron is a once-in-a-lifetime player. You only get so many players. Not even so many. You have Bill Russell, you have Wilt Chamberlain, you have Dr. J, you have Moses Malone, you had Larry Bird, Magic [Johnson], you had [Michael] Jordan, you had Allen Iverson, Shaq [O’Neal], Kobe [Bryant], and now it’s LeBron’s time.”
James led the Lakers to a championship in 2020 and is focused on doing it again this season. The team lacks the wing defenders it had that year (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Danny Green and Alex Caruso, among others), but it still has a talented roster on paper — one also headlined by Anthony Davis.
Here are some other notes from the Pacific:
- Jim Alexander of the Orange County Register explores whether trading for Patrick Beverley is a sign that the Lakers will move Russell Westbrook. As we detailed earlier in the week, Beverley and Westbrook have been involved in many heated battles and confrontations. We’ve seen former enemies succeed on the same team before — including with the Lakers, when Kobe Bryant and Ron Artest teamed up to win a championship in 2010 — but it’s unclear if Beverley and Westbrook can co-exist. Los Angeles also has Kendrick Nunn as a third option at point guard.
- Nuggets star Jamal Murray, who missed last season due to a torn ACL, continues to express confidence he’ll be back to 100% at some point this season, he told Matthew Sullivan of News.com.au. Denver is expected to contend for a title, sporting a projected starting group of Murray, Caldwell-Pope, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon and two-time reigning MVP Nikola Jokic.
- The Warriors have hired Noel Hightower as a player development coach, as relayed by Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files. Hightower will also serve as an assistant coach with the team’s G League affiliate. He worked with the Pacers as a basketball assistant last season.
So confused my the Lakers truly. They want to be a better team? Okay trade Westbrook for Randle and Fournier. Solution: your now a better team. Smh
Where wood Randle play? Davis doesn’t like the low post so he’s at one free throw line extended at 7 ft. Then LeBron likes to handle the ball at 6-8 260 outside. You going to put Julius Randle down low? I’m not sure that’s the place where he succeeds the most. So for all that money he sits and only plays part time 22 minutes?
You have to assume at this point that the Lakers are only going to get 50 games from A.D. Randall is as much of a hedge as anything else.
No to Randle and Fournier to the Lakers..They need versatile, defensive wings that can shoot from 3. They don’t need liabilities on defense…
Then again, it isn’t like they can really be picky when and if they trade Westbrook..lol
Their best hope to truly upgrade their roster was getting Kyrie; however, since that’s out the window, any trade involving Westbrook will likely only marginally male them better..
I will say if Kendrick Nunn comes back healthy that will be a huge bonus for the Lakers!!
Glad your not the gm. That’s a terrible long term trade for LA
It’s funny the Lakers are a whole lot better with Randle and Fournier, then they are with Westbrook. LeCon lst option, Unibrow 2nd option, Julius 3rd, and Fournier the 4th best scoring option. Sounds much better to compete in the West then presently constructed. Get it done Lakers!
Lakers fans are groupies. They don’t mind extending a 38 years old Lebron for 50 mills a year! Ridiculous!! He is washed up and wouldn’t take a pay cut at his age like Duncan did.
LeHelp and Rich Paul are destroying this league and inciting rebellion against owners and small market teams. They’re making it fun to follow the league smh!
“He is washed up”. Lmao Anyone with two eyes saw he was the only reason they even sniffed the play in.
Nahhh, they only sniffed the play-in because Portland, Kings, OKC, Rockets and Spurs were flat out tanking not to mention COVID protocol and Clippers injuries.
I’m not saying that he can’t play at his age but he ain’t the same and not worth 50 millions for sure! I believe that supers stars and payers in general should make less money as they get older and their stats go down. That’s one of the reasons why a lot of fans are not interested in watching the games anymore when they see how overpaid these players are with such economic instability!!
You got guy like Kyrie making a million per game( makes 33 million while averaging 30 games per season)!!! That’s is insane and outraging!!
NBA is at an all time high in popularity and LBJ lead the league in scoring up until the last week of the season
@Dunk
Dude… his 52%/35%/76% with 30/8/6 are all near or above career average stats. He’s still a top player right now. go back to sleep bro.
When you control the ball for a team, and play large minutes on top of it, you’re bound to put up big numbers like LeBron did last year…
He just seems less explosive, a couple steps slow, and it’s also severely hurt his perimeter defense. Well, not like he was truly a world beater on the perimeter defensively anyways, but he’s certainly gotten much worse..
He isn’t nearly as efficient as he once was, and in turn, he’s no longer able to
significantly positively effect those around him.
He had a good original plan, let AD control the regular season, so he could relax and not have to work as hard, and it worked for one year…AD however, just wasn’t built as sturdy to be able to carry that weight year after year..
Then, he thought he could let Westbrook and AD control the season, and he could relax until the postseason….Yeah, not so much, that one flopped miserably due to their injuries and Westbrook playing pretty awful.
LeBron can still turn it on for periods of time, but he’s no longer the King..It’s been a hot minute since we’ve seen THAT LeBron on a consistent basis. I am in no way dissing the man, ues a legend, but shoot, come on the dude is getting old and he has seemingly countless miles on his body, what more can anyone expect from him these days though…!?!
@Richard
LBJ ranked 4th in player efficiency behind Jokic, Giannis, Embid and ahead of Durant. He’s still elite bro. Either these metrics mean something or they don’t.
@richardc. How many of LeBrons games did you watch last year?
Yeah the irony here is this argument is used for LeBron and Beard and Luka – “Well, of course they have great stats they always have the ball” – yet just look one post up and you’ll see a name that refutes that notion: Julius Randle.
If putting up the #s Luka and Bron put up (and Beard at his peak) was simply a function of playing a ton of minutes with the ball in your hand then Randle would have averaged 35/10/8 last year.
Ain’t that easy. Bron isn’t quite as durable as he used to be, but when he’s healthy there aren’t more than 4-5 players better or equal to him.
I made a serious pitch in my other fourm for LeBron to become the 6th man on the Lakers last year.
A priceless response followed.
@Juice
Please name me the 5 players better than LBJ on the Lakers??? Wtf?
I like the Lakers championship statement
Do it again this season
Lakers are on championship mode this coming season
Championship
Sillivan what is your prediction for the Lakers seading this year, and also, how far will they go? Thank you.
I would guess first, second or third for the Lakers – is crappy Melo still on the team?
More like 6th seed and we’ll see.
Darvin ham really included iverson lol
Lakers???
Warriors are their roadblock besides the Clippers, Suns, Utah, etc.
Don’t discount the Grizzlies, they’re making their way up to the elites, and they’ll certainly be better than the Jazz next season..
No they won’t.
MrLolz aren’t the Jazz going to go through a rebuild this year? And the grizzlies, wow, they’re on the verge of a breakthrough.
so, you don’t watch basketball apparently.
Does anybody know anything this Hightower guy? It could be an interesting hirer. I haven’t heard anything about them losing anyone on the player development side. Maybe it means Highway 17 is going to get a bit busier. You might see fewer players suit up at Chase for the Warriors.
So Ham mentions Moses Malone instead of Kareem? Wtf
You choose Moses out of those names? Dude’s a three time MVP! Loved to watch him play but how about Iverson? He’s the one that doesn’t belong.
If I had to choose Kareem or Moses there is no question. Iverson may be also questionable but hey he is coaching the Lakers and Kareem is probably top 3 if not their best player all time.
I think Ham was going on there with the mentioning of all those classic players.
Will Ham wave his pom-poms every time LeFlop scores??? Sounds more like a cheerleader than a coach. Lakers will never compete for another championship as long as LeFlop is on their roster.
You have to love this “Does LA seriously want to trade Russell Westbrook because they just got PAT BEV?” rumor milling.
I’m pretty sure the Lakers have wanted to trade Russell since … IDK … last December?
The move for Bev seems way more correlated to Utah having a fire-sale on veterans that are better than 75% of LA’s current roster than anything to do with Russ.
Let’s be real. It’s been Steph Curry time for at least 5 years now