Aloha,
I was thinking about LeBron and his extension. He has stated that he won’t take less then a max salary. If that’s true he needs to either sign an extension this off season, sign a new contract after next season with the Lakers or ask for a trade this summer. There will not be a team with the kind of cap space it would require to sign him to a max contract in free agency. And at close to 50 mil I doubt a team would want to do a sign and trade that would hard cap them.
From the Lakers stand point of course they will try to sign him. But the question remains, should they? Even if both AD and LeBron had relatively healthy seasons, it’s hard to see a path to becoming true contenders with any of the Westbrook trade scenarios. The Lakers really need to be careful this summer or the could screw the franchise for years to come.
The assumption is that the Buss family’s ultimate goal is to win the title…they’ve shown in the past (and recently) that it isn’t. The business side is just as important and Lebron is great for business. They’ll pay what it takes to keep him here and continue to fill the arena, appear on national tv games, and rake in the money…title or no title. They did the same thing with Kobe’s last contract and proceeded to be the worst team in the league for about 5 seasons iirc. Time is always on the side of ownership.
Mongo is spot on. The Laker PR machine is all about title talk. The Lakers as a team are all about making sure star players know they have perks here. Input, play out your days in max deals, pick your locker.