Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James has agreed to a new two-year, $85 million contract extension and ESPN’s Dave McMenamin confirmed Thursday – just under 24 hours since the deal was first reported by The Athletic.
It’s a mere bump in salary from what he was due to make during the 2024-25 season on his player option for $51.4 million.
Last week, however, James informed the Lakers he will opt out of his contract and enter free agency – a day after they selected Bronny with the 55th overall pick in today’s preposterously far-off-in-the-distance-night-marish-like-future-to-think-about NBA Draft (2024!). Even before the father-son duo was on a two-year’s horizon, James appeared destined to play his 22nd NBA season — seventh with Los Angeles.
Finalized on the fourth day of free agency, the plan includes a no-trade clause as well as player option for 2015-16.
That the deal took so long to finalize stemmed from James’ recruiting ploy which failed apparently in finding another “impact” free agent.
According to ESPN, James was also intent on making sure the Lakers signed either Klay Thompson or DeMar DeRozan. The Lakers supposedly had a $20 million-per-year agreement in place for Thompson, and he is instead going to be teaming up with Kyrie Irving (and Luka Doncic) on the Western Conference champion Dallas Mavericks.
