Getty LeBron James #6 of the Los Angeles Lakers shoots and scores against the Brooklyn Nets.
LeBron James signed a two-year, $85.6 million extension with the Los Angeles Lakers in December 2020, meaning he won’t become an unrestricted free agent until the summer of 2023 after initially signing a four-year, $153.5 million deal with the purple and gold in July 2018.
LeBron’s run with the Lakers has been filled with ups and downs. Los Angeles missed the playoffs in 2019, won the championship in 2020, lost in the first round of the 2021 playoffs and is currently the ninth seed in the West and most likely on its way to participating in the play-in tournament for the second year in a row.
LeBron is a four-time champion and four-time Finals MVP. He’s universally recognized as the second greatest player in NBA history behind Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan and will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer one day. LBJ has nothing left to prove and will probably pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the NBA’s all-time scoring list next season.
However, there’s a chance LeBron has won his last championship, especially if he stays with the Lakers, who have the oldest roster in the NBA this season and don’t have trade assets to improve in the summer.
With that said, some pundits believe LeBron should request a trade or the Lakers should trade the four-time MVP. On that subject, the Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor and Bill Simmons recently came up with some wild trades.
Simmons: What if Nets Traded Kyrie Irving for LeBron?
The 2022 NBA trade deadline has passed, so trades can’t happen until the summer. However, that didn’t stop Simmons from thinking about a hypothetical trade between the Brooklyn Nets and Lakers involving LeBron and his former teammate, Kyrie Irving.
“What if Brooklyn called and said, ‘We’ll give you Kyrie and the two first-round picks we’ve gotten for LeBron?’” Simmons asked on his podcast.
The Nets acquired two future first-round picks from the Philadelphia 76ers in the James Harden trade. If LeBron requests a trade or the Lakers decide to move on from the Akron Hammer this offseason, a trade sending LeBron to Brooklyn and Irving and two draft picks to Los Angeles would be legal, per ESPN’s trade machine.
Irving is one of the most talented guards in the NBA. He has career averages of 22.9 points and 5.7 assists and has made seven All-Star teams and three All-NBA teams. However, Uncle Drew is unvaccinated against COVID-19, making him a polarizing player.
After Simmons proposed the LeBron-Irving trade, O’Connor wondered whether Ben Simmons, whom the Nets acquired from the Sixers in the Harden trade, would be more appealing for the Lakers since he’s vaccinated against COVID-19, younger than Irving and an elite passer and defender.
O’Connor: Simmons and draft picks for LeBron could work too
A trade sending Simmons and two draft picks to the Lakers for LeBron is legal as well through ESPN’s trade machine. That’s the deal O’Connor proposed in his chat with Simmons.
“What if the Nets just said, ‘We’ll flip you Ben Simmons?’ And what if they call a couple minutes before the deadline, they call [Lakers general manager Rob] Pelinka, ‘We’ll give you Ben Simmons and two firsts for LeBron James?'”
For what it’s worth, O’Connor and Simmons suggested their “mock” trades before the 2022 deadline passed.
While anything is possible in the NBA, the odds of LeBron getting traded to the Nets and Irving or Simmons getting sent to the Lakers this offseason are slim to none. Los Angeles likely wouldn’t send LeBron to a team with Kevin Durant on it. That would be just flat-out unfair for the rest of the NBA.
The Nets would destroy teams with LeBron and Durant — arguably the two best players in the NBA — leading the way.