LeBron commits another year of his life to a failing small business. Sad

King James took the check. It changes nothing.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Girl With the Red Heat, Johannes Vermeer, 1665-66

LeBron James signed a contract extension with a small mom-and-pop business called the Los Angeles Lakers: two years at $97 million with a player option on the second season. In other words, LeBron deferred potential free agency from 2023 to 2024 for the low, low cost of a $47 million salary in 2023-24. If he rapidly degrades at he approaches age 40 and choose not to hit free agency, he can cash in with just under $50 million in the 2024-25 season. Nice work if you can get it.

My read is that with LeBron unable to unilaterally nope out next summer, this relieves some pressure on Jeannie Buss, Rob Pelinka and whichever Rambises are currently pulling the strings in El Segundo. What’s unclear is whether between Buss scamming young Lakers fans with PS5s, Pelinka preparing his training camp book lists for the 2022-23 Lakers, and Kurt Rambis painting Warhammer miniatures with his bestie Phil Jackson the power structure of the Lakers ever felt any pressure.

We know that the Lakers are trying to get Russell Westbrook a new home and really trying to land Kyrie Irving. I have no read or feel on whether the Kyrie thing is plausible, and it seems like no one in the media has a sense on that either. But now, even if Pelinka, Buss and the Rambis family dog Rufus¹ fall short on adding Kyrie over the next few months, LeBron doesn’t have much leverage next summer.

Of course, he could pull a Durant and ask out. I don’t think LeBron has that in him. He has never gone there despite being regularly disgruntled with his front offices, and he’s so close to the end of a potential G.O.A.T. career and so close to becoming a Lakers legend in addition to a Cavaliers, Heat and Team USA legend that it would seem counterintuitive. He also legitimately seems to love being in Los Angeles given his off-court business interests and family’s embrace of SoCal. There’s the whole Playing With Bronny thing in the background, but otherwise it’s hard to see LeBron getting fed up next summer and telling Buss, Pelinka and the Rambis’s 2017 Corolla to trade him.

It’s less hard to see him pull the other Durant and demand that the coach and general manager are replaced. That actually seems well within the realm of possibilities.

Of course, the pressure has been on Buss, Pelinka and Bill Rambis (Kurt’s third cousin once removed) since the nightmare 2020-21 season, and that hasn’t really worked out well for LeBron or the Lakers. So perhaps part of the calculus going into LeBron and Rich Paul’s decision to take this extension is to take pressure off Buss, Pelinka and Linda Rambis’s favorite shawl and let them rebuild a champion.

Yeah right.

It’s probably more than this extension locks LeBron in for two seasons, and consolidates his role in the power structure. The Lakers are LeBron’s team for the foreseeable future. The foreseeable future in Lakerland is always RIGHT NOW. LeBron is not a flight risk because he’s here for two seasons, and the Lakers really never look beyond that timeframe anyway. So it only makes sense to further defer to him. He’s won more titles since 2003, when he entered the league, than the Lakers have. He’s the boss. It’s time for Jeannie Buss, Rob Pelinka and Kurt Rambis’s enchilada recipe to step aside and let the Global Icon work.

As if he hasn’t been doing that already.

…

Nevermind. Dude just grabbed the bag sitting on the table. The Lakers are still where they were a day ago: shallow roster, unreliable No. 2, limited future. But LeBron is at least $47 million and possible $97 million richer. Good for him.

(Oh, how I wish I could truly believe that the Lakers were doomed, that some magical gift won’t fall into their laps. Again.

How I wish.)