The world according to Jim:
• NBA Held Hostage, Day 24: LeBron James chooses a team, finally.
And unless you are (a) a Philadelphia 76ers fan excited about LeBron and Jaylen Brown teaming up or (b) the stanniest of LeBron stans, the drawn-out nature of The Decision, Oldtimers Edition has seemed like a massive ego flex and nothing more. …
• Now, among other things, the NBA can at last finalize its 2026-27 schedule (and prepare for a Lakers-Sixers Christmas Day matchup in L.A.). Teams that had been awaiting LeBron’s choice before wrapping up deals with their own players can go ahead.
• And contrary to social media speculation, his choice wasn’t predicated on whether his new team would need to sweeten the deal by obtaining one of his guys, either Anthony Davis or Kyrie Irving (though a trade could still happen). Nor was it a matter of chasing the bag, but we knew that all along: LeBron made $52.6 million in Los Angeles last season and declined a $51.4 million player option, and his two-year contract with Philadelphia is for the veteran minimum exception, two years at just under $8 million. …
• My own theory – OK, call it a wild, unsourced guess – on the split between LeBron and the Lakers goes like this: The organization got tired of the passive-aggressive power moves that are the specialty of LeBron and agent Rich Paul. And so, quietly and behind the scenes, they informed LeBron they planned to go in another direction but were willing to let LeBron sell it as his choice.
And under this scenario – again, just a guesstimate on my part – guaranteeing Bronny James’ contract for 2026-27 was part of the deal. …
• The NBA’s GOAT debate – you know, the one that relieves boredom among the fans of LeBron and Michael Jordan – actually is easy to figure out, and neither guy is on top. If championships are the primary currency, as they should be since the object of the game is to win, then Bill Russell’s 11 rings conquer all.
Next are Jordan’s and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 6, followed by Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant with 5 and LeBron, Steph Curry and Shaquille O’Neal with 4. …
• And you have no idea how difficult that was to write, as a kid growing up in the era when Russell’s Celtics always broke Lakers fans’ hearts in the spring. Unless you grew up here in that era as well and share the feeling. …
• You can also measure GOAT-ness by the combined number of NBA titles and MVP awards: Russell 16, Kareem 12, Jordan 11, Magic 8, LeBron 8, Duncan 7, Kobe 6, Curry 6, Wilt Chamberlain 6, Shaq 5 and Moses Malone 4. (The tiebreaker is titles, which is why Magic is ahead of LeBron and Kobe ahead of Curry and Wilt.) …
• The “Look what I found” moment of the week: The teenager in Portland who found Chamberlain’s 1972 Finals warmup jacket in a pile at the Goodwill and bought it for $3.07 wound up selling it at auction for $89,600.
Hopefully a Lakers fan wound up with it. …
• Today’s quiz: In those ’72 Finals, the Lakers defeated the Knicks to win L.A.’s first championship and sixth in franchise history overall (and Russell, by then retired, was the color analyst alongside Keith Jackson on ABC’s Finals coverage). How many times did Wilt face Russell in the playoffs, and what was his record?
Bonus question: How many times in the playoffs did Wilt play every minute of a game? Answers below. …
• Tom Dundon is drawing inspiration from the bad owner playbook after purchasing the Portland Trail Blazers. He’s cutting and slashing jobs – the Blazers’ entire broadcast team is gone, for example – and he hired a head coach based on his willingness to work cheap and is already staring down the city over arena improvements. The fear in Portland is that he’s about to do that city what Clay Bennett did when he bought the Seattle SuperSonics in 2006 and subsequently moved them to Oklahoma City. …
• And in the midst of this, Dundon – also owner of the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes – made sure that his wife and five children had their names engraved on the Cup, even as others who actually had a hand in the team’s championship were omitted. Class act, right? …
• Incidentally, if you’re interested in the Portland situation, it’s worth a subscription to John Canzano’s Substack platform, “Bald-Faced Truth.” …
• Item: The Rams add alternate uniforms commemorating their first L.A. championship in 1951 and the Fearsome Foursome of the 1960s.
Comment: Normally I’m not a fan of alternate uniforms. These? I love ’em, especially the blue on white from the Deacon Jones-Merlin Olsen-Lamar Lundy-Rosey Grier era. We’re only scheduled to see those once, on the night before Thanksgiving against the Packers. Can we campaign for more? …
• Quiz answer: Wilt was 21-29 against Boston’s Russell in playoff matchups, with the Warriors (in Philadelphia and San Francisco), the 76ers and the Lakers, and he lost seven of the eight series, including 1969 with the Lakers. The five Game 7 losses were by a total of 11 points, including that 108-106 Game 7 loss in 1969, when Wilt came out with 5:20 left after twisting his right knee and coach Bill van Breda Kolff kept him on the bench even after Wilt argued that he could return.
Bonus question answer: Wilt played 160 playoff games in his career. In 91 of them he played every minute – all 48 on 86 occasions, plus five more in which he played every minute of overtime as well …
• What the truly comfortable really think about the rest of us: ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro, discussing the brutal layoffs at his company this week, referred to them as “job impacts.” No, those are people’s lives and careers you’re messing with, and no amount of bloodless corporate-speak hides or changes the reality. …
• And this has to be a fake or a parody, right? A social media post reprinted a purported memo from Dundon to the Blazers’ remaining staff that included this passage: “Some people call them layoffs – I refer to them as ‘efficiency opportunities.’ Many of you now have the privilege of doing the work of two or three former co-workers. That’s the kind of growth we love to see.”
Then again, how many captains of industry actually think that way? Way too many, I suspect.
jalexander@scng.com