LeBron James’ Lakers Return Official, But Agent’s Comments Raise Eyebrows Around NBA

LeBron James picking up his $52.6 million player option to return to the Lakers was expected. The message attached to the decision? Not so much.

James’ agent Rich Paul issued a statement on Sunday that confirmed LeBron will return for a record-setting 23rd NBA season, but also made it clear the future Hall of Famer will be keeping a close eye on the Lakers’ offseason plans. The league is interpreting that as a possible warning shot.

“LeBron wants to compete for a championship,” Paul said, before adding while James understands the Lakers are balancing their future and present, “we do want to evaluate what’s best for LeBron at this stage in his life and career.”

On The Hoop Collective podcast, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said Paul gave the Lakers and Luka Doncic’s camp a heads-up about the statement, but the rest of the league was blindsided. Windhorst said he called multiple front offices to gauge reactions and “did not find a team who was prepared for this.”

One rumored LeBron landing spot, the Cavaliers, has shown no signs of prepping for a reunion. They just traded for Lonzo Ball and re-signed Sam Merrill — not exactly signs they intend to bring back James.

“When this statement came out, I began to call teams,” Windhorst said. “And I don’t want to get into the who and what and who I talked to, but let’s just say I identified the handful of teams that I could see LeBron trying to be traded to. I’m not going to talk about which teams I talked to, but I did not find a team that was prepared for this.

“In other words, all of them that I talked to, I didn’t talk to 29 teams, I talked to a handful of teams and they were all caught flat-footed by this.”

James has a no-trade clause, complicating any deal, and Windhorst doesn’t believe anything is imminent. But the message was sent.

And around the league, it was received.