No topic in NBA discussion has been hotter over the past week than where LeBron James will play next season â which considering he turns 41 years old on December 30 could easily be the last campaign of his already-legendary career. James invoked his $56.2 million player option to stay with the Los Angeles Lakers, but that has not quelled the fervent speculation over where James will land.
One prominent NBA expert this week proposed an answer â Los Angeles.
Or, to be specific, Inglewood, California, because that is where the Los Angeles Clippers play their home games, at the 18,000-seat Inuit Dome, a new arena located in the same complex as the Kia Forum, formerly known as the Great Western Forum, which from its opening in 1967 to the start of the 2001-2002 season was the home of the Lakers.
Since 2001 the Lakers have played in downtown Los Angeles at Crypto.com Arena, originally known as the Staples Center.
Wild Trade Proposal Sends ‘King’ James Across Town
In a wild trade idea â one so wild he admitted that it probably would not happen â media entrepreneur and founder of The Ringer Bill Simmons proposed that the Lakers send James to the Intuit Dome to play for the Los Angeles Clippers.
The trade would be a straight-up, two-team, one-for-one deal that brings 34-year-old, 13-year veteran Kawhi Leonard to the Lakers â a team that almost acquired him in 2019.
Coming off winning an NBA championship in 2019 with the Toronto Raptors, Leonard was a free agent and received active interest from both of his hometown teams. Leonard grew up in Moreno Valley, a Southern California city about 70 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
But despite the opportunity to team with James and center Anthony Edwards to create a super-team, Leonard opted for the Clippers instead.
“They both get to stay in L.A.. Little change of scenery for each,” Simmons said on the Thursday edition of his Bill Simmons Podcast. “If you’re the Lakers, you get out of this weird LeBron situation. I don’t know if it changes your destiny that much, but at least it resets whose team it is. I think the Lakers say no, but that was an interesting one, too.”
Trade Idea Gets Lakers Out of ‘Weird’ Situation
The “weird” situation is that after James exercised his option, his agent Rick Paul spoke to ESPN’s Shams Charania, suggesting that James was unhappy that the Lakers were in a developmental stage. James, Paul said, preferred to be in a “win now” situation â which is not too surprising for a 41-year-old player seeking a fifth and likely final championship ring.
Rob Mahoney, another Ringer NBA podcast host appeared with Simmons and concurred with the James-for-Leonard trade idea.
“[James] wants to exert a certain level of control over circumstances, as he should,” Mahoney said of LeBron. “And so you are kind of trading a flawed, caveated star for another one,” Mahoney told Simmons on the podcast. “It’s gonna be someone with a contract like Towns or a player of a really like lower-caliber, like an OG Anunoby, or it’s gonna be someone like Kawhi with all the questions that come with him.”
According to the site FanSpo, which automatically analyzes proposed trades to test their compliance with salary cap rules, the one-for-one swap of the two superstars would keep the Lakers $6.9 million under the first apron salary threshold. The Clippers would be $20.4 million under the first apron, making the trade, financially anyway, quite plausible.
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