James heading to the Lakers
LeBron accepts 4-year, $154 million deal to take his talents to Lakers, opening the door to major shifts in Western and Eastern conferences
The NBA’s LeBron James has agreed to a four-year $154 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers after declining a player option with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
LeBron James shook the ground beneath the NBA again.
As generational stars have before him, James shifted the balance of power toward Los Angeles, agreeing Sunday to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers for a four-year, $154 million deal.
He made his latest move with no fanfare, no television special or Sports Illustrated essay, this time leaving it to his agency, Klutch Sports, to release a brief statement. Yet the simple announcement, though not unexpected, was seismic anyway, as the 14-time All-Star and four-time MVP team will join a team with 16 championships.
James, 33, has been to the NBA Finals in all eight seasons since the first time he left his hometown team, winning a pair of championships in Miami and another since his return to Cleveland. With each title came a Finals MVP award.
He is far from the first to head west to the Lakers, following the path of other alltime greats such as Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal to the league’s glamour team.
With James becoming the first player in league history to lead the NBA in postseason scoring and leave his team, there is no active player in the Eastern Conference who has been the NBA’s Most Valuable Player. The MVP runner-up to Rockets guard James Harden this season, James was in the top three of the MVP balloting
in the season prior to each of his moves, matching as many such instances as there had been in NBA history.
James, who owns homes in Los Angeles, will have a player option for the final season but agreed to a longer contract than his deals with the Cavaliers. It’s a strong indication of his commitment to building the Lakers into a contender after topping the Eastern Conference in nine of 12 seasons.
The Lakers’ priority shifts toward trying to work a trade for Spurs star and Southern California native Kawhi Leonard, given the championship potential that would come if they can add Leonard to a team led by James.
With James’ deal and reports of agreements to sign Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to a oneyear, $12 million contract, Lance Stevenson to a $4.5 million deal and center JaVale McGee, the Lakers have less than $10 million in cap room if they renounce their rights to their other free agents.
That would not be enough to sign Rockets center Clint Capela, though there are several moves the Lakers could make to open greater cap room if they need it. If they released Luol Deng and stretched his contract, they would have $23.6 million of cap room.
Keeping Capela, a restricted free agent, is a Rockets priority. Capela tweeted an emoji indicating sadness minutes before James’ announcement, though it was unclear if the timing was a coincidence.
James’ move west might not increase the Rockets’ urgency to make their own move, but only because that was already there. That much was made clear with the agreement on a four-year, $160 million deal with Chris Paul, which was reached nearly as soon as negotiations could officially begin Saturday night.
Given the Rockets’ 65-win season and postseason run to within one game of the NBA Finals, they were likely to treat free agency with short-term goals. That became clear with the deal with their 33-year-old point guard.
But Paul was always considered a certainty to remain with the Rockets and said he believed he made his decision about this season’s free agency when he facilitated the trade to them from the Clippers a year ago.
Guard Gerald Green was just as entrenched and quickly agreed to a one-year, $2.4 million deal that will allow him to become a free agent again next season but with early Bird rights.
The Rockets, however, were left with considerable work to do after Trevor Ariza agreed to a one-year, $15 million contract to go from the team with the NBA’s best record to a Suns team that had the worst.
The Rockets went into free agency knowing Ariza, 33, might be difficult to keep.
His departure will likely make decisions about how to retain free agent Luc Mbah a Moute and how they will spend their $5.3 million taxpayer midlevel exception crucial.
They are expected to seek a young wing with potential to develop on a bargain contract similar to Mbah a Moute’s last season.
The Rockets reached out to James Nunnally, a 6-7 shooter who has excelled for Fenerbahçe of the Turkish Basketball League.
That was just a preliminary conversation, but the Rockets will have more work to do to stay at last season’s level.
With James’ move west, they have even greater need to accomplish it.