LeBron James, renewal with the Lakers: he will be the highest paid player ever in the NBA

LeBron James renews with the Los Angeles Lakers. $ 97 million guaranteed two-year extension, with player option for the 2024-25 season. James was on his contract, with a last year of over 44 million salary in yellow and purple. James can thus cross the 40 years as an NBA player, he will turn 38 next December. There’s more: he reaches 532 million earned in his career, a record every time.

Business center

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LeBron has in Los Angeles not only the city of the franchise he plays for, but also the center of his varied business. Therefore, joining the Lakers until the end of his career was an expected move, even a foregone conclusion. It wasn’t clear how long James still wanted to play. For sure for another two years. Maybe for three, in fact. Maybe he wants to wait for Bronny, his son, who will soon choose which college to play for next season. Playing with the baby would be the icing on the cake of an epochal career in which he has even gone beyond his dreams. LeBron has played for 4 seasons at the Lakers so far: twice he has not even reached the playoffs, on one occasion he went out in the first round with the Californians, but won the title in the Orlando bubble in 2020, and as MVP of the Finals, thus ennobling his experience in a historical franchise with a great tradition. That was his fourth NBA triumph, for three different franchises, after Miami and Cleveland.

Lakers perspective

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If James’s choice was obvious, the franchise orientation was a tad less so. Historically capable of attracting free champions, with its sparkling market. LeBron in California also does cinema, in his spare time… But the current reality tells of a LeBron “master” of the franchise. Able to do good and bad weather via Rich Paul, the owner of the Klutch agency, the one of reference as the tank of the Lakers roster. In essence, LeBron does the market and not too hidden, even if technically the General Manager of the franchise is Rob Pelinka. With this situation, elderly or not, it was very difficult for the Lakers to even think of downloading him. And we don’t even talk about exchanging it. He had the ball, once more. It was more a question of how much, more than if, then. In short, how long LeBron would have decided to play with the Lakers. The doubt was this. Now cleared up. Long…

The market

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At this point, for at least the next two seasons, the new signings will be aimed at winning immediately, because LeBron has no time to lose at this age. So the projects will be short-term, immediate. It is difficult for the Lakers to stack young people on the staff, here. Kyrie Irving’s name is also topical: James had courted him this summer, he would like to take him to the city of angels to rebuild the couple that gave the title to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016. Of course both are not what they used to be … in Irving, LeBron should get rid of Westbrook, also considering that coexistence with the Californian winger last year never really worked. And so we need market joints, perhaps a third team to be involved before proposing a direct trade to the Brooklyn Nets. We will see soon. For now, the certainty is that LeBron will remain with the Lakers, as king of Los Angeles. And still for a long time. Riccardo Pratesi