LeBron James Focused On Remaining With Lakers Beyond This Season

While the NBA-loving universe loves to speculate what comes next for Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, odds are, he’s not going anywhere.

At least, that’s the way it seems, according to Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.

James, 39, has a $51.4 million player option on his contract. Should he decline it over the summer, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent and able to sign anywhere. We all know James, and we all know he loves to keep people guessing.

If you remember, he indicated last season that he dreams of playing in the NBA with his son Bronny James, and would leave for whichever team drafts him. But Bronny doesn’t yet look NBA-ready as a freshman at USC, and LeBron has a decision approaching.

Well, it seems as if that decision has already been made.

As our Ashish Mathur relayed here, the Golden State Warriors attempted to trade for James just ahead of last week’s deadline. So did the Philadelphia 76ers. At the very least, those teams wanted to gauge James’ interest in moving on. 

Both were shot down after the Lakers checked with Rich Paul, James’ high-profile agent.

“James remains focused on returning to the Lakers in the offseason, sources told ESPN, but undoubtedly there will be many of these same suitors — including Golden State and Philadelphia — looking to convince James otherwise,” Wojnarowski and Shelburne wrote of the superstar’s potential free agency.

In other words, James may not pick up his option with the Lakers, but very well could return on a series of shorter deals. Or something to that effect.

James is averaging 24.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 7.8 assists this season, shooting 52 percent from the field and 40 percent on 3-pointers. He is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and forever will be debated as the league’s greatest player of all time.

The Lakers (29-26) sit in ninth place in the Western Conference entering Wednesday’s road game against the Utah Jazz.