Ever since Rich Paul, the agent representing Los Angeles Lakers superstar and all-time NBA legend LeBron James, made a statement on June 29 that appeared to indicate James’ dissatisfaction with the Lakers’ direction, trade speculation around the 22-year veteran has run wild.
But a report by Dan Woike and Joe Vardon of The Athletic on Wednesday put those rumors to rest, revealing that the Lakers have not been involved in any trade talks surrounding James whatsoever.
Nor has there been any discussion of James’ requesting that the Lakers buy out his contract, which would allow him to become a free agent and move to another team.
For that matter James, who exercised his $52.6 million option to stay one more year with the Lakers, has not engaged in any contract-extension talks with Los Angeles either.
Lakers Possibly Poised to ‘Go For It’ With LeBron
The Paul comments that caused all the commotion were pretty straightforward.
âLeBron wants to compete for a championship. He knows the Lakers are building for the future,” Paul said at the time. “He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all.”
With James apparently committed to staying with the Lakers for one more season and possibly only one more season, it would appear then that the Lakers may be looking at a “go for it” season, making moves to bring one more championship to Los Angeles while James is still a Laker.
Of course, if indeed James has just one more year, that is also one more year the Lakers will have their superstar pairing of James and Luka Doncic intact. That’s a good start toward assembling a championship caliber team.
But there is one element that, even with James and Doncic together, the Lakers are still missing, and it is the element that often separates championship teams from pretenders. That element, of course, is defense.
The Lakers in 2024-2025 were a throughly mediocre defensive team. Their 113.8 defensive rating placed them 17th of the NBA’s 30 teams. James was right at the team average with a 114 defensive rating.
Doncic was right in that neighborhood as well, at 112.
Trade Proposal Creates Lockdown Defensive Backcourt
A new trade idea proposed by a user on the site FanSpo, directly addresses the problem, dealing Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, Shake Milton and first-round draft picks in 2028 and 2030 to the Portland Trail Blazers.
In return, the Lakers add former Boston Celtics championship-winning guard Jrue Holiday and his defensive rating of 101 in 62 games for Boston last season. Holiday was traded from the Celtics to the Trail Blazers earlier this offseason, as the Celtics made moves to get under the second apron salary threshold.
But in the proposed trade the Lakers also add defensive specialist Matisse Thybulle, who carries a defensive rating of 108.7 for his entire six-year career. The 28-year-old posted a 107 rating for the Blazers last season.
As part of the trade, the Lakers also clear $11 million in salary by shipping forward Maxi Kleber to the Brooklyn Nets.
On Thursday, the Blazers announced that they were re-acquiring their nine-time All-Star, 2012 first-round draft pick Damian Lillard. Though Lillard is likely to miss the entire 2025-2026 season after tearing his Achilles tendon in a playoff game with the Milwaukee Bucks, once he becomes active, Portland will likely move Holiday anyway.
The new Lakers trade pitch assumes that Portland, not a contender in the coming season, will be willing to ship out Holiday a year early anyway, giving the Lakers a lockdown defensive backcourt combination that puts Los Angeles in position to compete for that last James championship ring.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Trade Pitch Sees Lakers Making Huge Defensive Upgrade to Help LeBron ‘Go For It’ appeared first on Heavy Sports.