After 22 seasons, LeBron James can finally check a new first – opting in the last year of his contract.
James, the top scorer of all time in the NBA, exercised his option as a player of $ 52.6 million to stay with the Los Angeles Lakers for the 2025-26 season, said James, Rich Paul Athletics.
The deadline for decision was on Sunday. After being 40 years old in December, James’ choice is notable because there is no guarantee on what comes after this next campaign. He could choose to retire, a possibility that he recognized publicly.
“LeBron knows that Lakers are building for the future, and he also wants to compete for the championships,” said Paul Paul Athletics. “We understand the difficulty of winning now while preparing for the future. We want to assess what is best for LeBron at this stage of his life and his career. He wants to make every season he has left into account, and the Lakers understand that we are favorable and we want what is best for him.
James is perhaps the sponsor of the empowerment of NBA players, leading a movement of players looking for shorter transactions with players to maximize the gain potential, maintain flexibility and apply pressure on the front offices. Dating from James’ six -year agreement with the Miami Heat signed in 2010, which had an outing clause after four seasons, the decision on Sunday the first time that he did not use a mechanism in his contract to become a free agent.
With his age and after recovering from a 2nd year MCL sprain in his sustained left knee in the last eliminatory match of the Lakers, in reality, there was not much market outside Los Angeles so that James obtained a new contract which is worth what the Lakers will pay this season. In addition, James Bonny’s son is starting his second season with Los Angeles, and it is just to wonder if the elder James would gladly move to play with Bonny.
Last season, James played 70 games and won the honors of the second All-NBA team. He collected an average of 24.4 points, 7.8 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game, firing 37.6% compared to 3 and a career record of 78.2% of the free throw line. After the elimination of the Lakers qualifying series, James was asked how long he wanted to play.
“I don’t know. I don’t have an answer to that,” he said. “Something I sit with my family, my wife and my support group and somehow talk about it and see what’s going on. And I just have a conversation with myself over the duration of the way of playing. I don’t know the answer to this right now, to be honest.”
James attended the organization of Lakers in 2018 and led the franchise to his 17th championship in 2020 alongside Anthony Davis, who is also represented by Agent Paul and joined James after forcing New Orleans trade in 2019. The Lakers exchanged and then treated Russell Westbrook under the pressure of James. And during the opening party last October, Lebron and Bronny became the first father-son duo to share a court as a teammates, which LeBron called “one of the most gratifying and satisfactory trips that I have ever assisted”.
But the Lakers enter a period of enormous changes. In February, the team shocked the NBA – and James – by exchanging Davis for Luka Dončić, acquiring a new focal point for identity on the field of the organization. And in June, Jeanie Buss agreed to sell controlled interests in the franchise for Mark Walter at an evaluation price of $ 10.1 billion.
After the season, the vice-president of Lakers basketball operations, Rob Pelinka, said that he was considering James, Dončić and Austin Reaves as the heart of the team.
“I think that when you get these three pillars in a training camp environment and you start to build a philosophy around them, it’s an excellent starting point,” said Pelinka. “And we did not have this opportunity this year, but we will do it next year.”
Dončić can sign a long -term extension with the Lakers on August 2.
As for the story of James as a trailblazer for the NBA contracts, he sadly left Cleveland as a free agent in the summer of 2010. But to help the Cavs recover certain assets in his departure, he signed a six -year agreement with them as part of a heat sign agreement. He led Miami to four finals – and two titles – but after a defeat against the San Antonio Spurs in the 2014 finals, he exercised the anticipated termination clause in his contract so that he could return to northeast Ohio.
In four seasons with Cleveland, after leaving the heat, James signed three contracts, all with options from players he refused. The first two times he refused his option with the CAVS, he never really threatened to leave as a free agent, but he held the spectrum of another potential departure on management managers so that the team shows that it remained determined to win. After Cleveland won his very first championship in 2016, James signed the longest of his three agreements with the CAVS at that time – a two -year contract with the option of a player for a third year to exercise in the summer of 2018. James refused this option before leaving as free agent for the Lakers that summer.
James’ first contract with the Lakers was four years and $ 153.5 million, which he extended by two years and for an additional $ 86 million before the 2020-21 season. He signed another extension in 2022 for two years and 99 million dollars, with a player option, and refused this option last summer to sign his current agreement – for two years and 101 million dollars with the player option he had just exercised, a non -commercial clause and a 15% salesman on the value of his contract if he accepted an exchange.
James recently returned to activity on the ground after his knee sprain.
(Photo: Harry How / Getty Images)
