A Hollywood Ending, page 30
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In early September, just about three months after saying that he was contemplating retirement, LeBron, Maverick Carter, and Randy Mims boarded a flight for Saudi Arabia. They spent multiple days there. LeBron visited a local basketball camp, but he also spent time with Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud, the kingdom’s minister of culture and a member of the royal family. LeBron didn’t post about it on social media, and the trip got little coverage in the United States. It didn’t take much to connect the dots, though.
With an estimated net worth north of $1 billion—the first NBA player ever to cross that threshold while still playing, according to Forbes—there weren’t many endeavors for which LeBron needed cash. He could buy real estate, invest in various apps and businesses, and launch a content company. What he wanted most, though, was to buy an NBA team, and with valuations skyrocketing past $4 billion—the valuation price at which the Suns sold for in 2022—he couldn’t afford one without some help.
LeBron’s pursuit of an NBA franchise had started nearly a decade earlier. “My dream is to actually own a team,” he had said on a podcast in August 2016. The NBA prohibited active players from having equity in a franchise, but that didn’t mean LeBron couldn’t start preparing. Around that same time, people close to him began reaching out to moneymen in NBA ownership circles to build the necessary connections, and as the years went by, LeBron became more vocal about his goals. “Ain’t no maybe about it,” he told The Athletic’s Joe Vardon in the winter of 2019. “I’m going to do that shit.” He even started analyzing the league from an owner’s perspective. In 2023, the league and the NBPA finalized a new collective bargaining agreement. Soon after, the union set up individual meetings with every team to review the details of the deal. During the Lakers’ session, LeBron expressed frustration about the difficulty teams would face in retaining their players. He thought teams that drafted well and made smart decisions—like the Thunder, whom he specifically mentioned[*1]—should be rewarded. Or at least be given mechanisms to keep their rosters intact.
By the summer of 2023, LeBron had a target city in mind. Three years earlier, Adam Silver had told reporters, “I think I’ve always said that it’s sort of the manifest destiny of the league that you expand at some point,” and it soon became accepted that Las Vegas would be a city receiving an NBA expansion team.
LeBron wasted no time planting his flag.
“I want a team in Vegas,” he said during an episode of his YouTube show The Shop in June 2022.
“I would love to bring a team here at some point,” he told reporters following a preseason game in Las Vegas that October.
“I think adding an NBA franchise here would just add to the momentum that’s going on in this town,” he said during another exhibition game in Vegas a year later. “I think it’s only a matter of time, and I hope I’m part of that time.”
But LeBron wasn’t the only one gunning for an NBA franchise, and he wasn’t the only one eyeing Vegas. Various sports bigwigs and financiers were laying the groundwork for potential Sin City proposals, and most of them had more money than LeBron. “It doesn’t matter who he is,” a team owner said. “If he gets outbid, he’s not getting the franchise.”
Many in ownership circles assumed this was the reason for his trip to Saudi Arabia. After all, it had come just a few months after LeBron, in response to reports that a Saudi Arabian football club had offered the French soccer superstar Kylian Mbappé nearly a billion dollars to come play for them, tweeted the Forrest Gump running GIF and wrote, “Me headed to Saudi when they call @RichPaul4 & @mavcarter for that 1 year deal! .” LeBron received some heat for his overtures to Saudi Arabia. A September 2023 column in The Daily Beast accused him of participating in “sportswashing”—a phrase used to describe the way some nations invest in sports to distract from ugly episodes or policies—but few others did. And anyway, LeBron by this point was no longer as concerned with being a vocal political force; in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, he stepped down as the leader of More Than a Vote, the nonprofit organization he’d launched during the tumultuous summer of 2020, and handed the reins to WNBA All-Star Nneka Ogwumike.
But Saudi Arabia wasn’t just trying to convince athletes to come play in the Gulf. It had also, through its sovereign wealth fund, begun investing billions of dollars in Western sports teams and leagues. These offerings were welcomed with open arms; in 2022, in response to the largesse from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, NBA owners approved a rule change allowing sovereign wealth funds to purchase up to 20 percent of a team.
“The [Saudi government’s public investment fund] would be the perfect partner for LeBron,” said an NBA owner. “It would give him the cash, because he could still be the front man.”
Over the next two years, LeBron would become an investor in a Saudi public investment fund–backed boat-racing league, while Carter and the same fund would both become strategic investors in a nascent international basketball league. For LeBron, though, taking the next steps toward NBA ownership would have to wait. All he could do in the meantime was prepare and take advantage of any opportunity he had on the Vegas stage.
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Lakers management took LeBron’s retirement comments to heart. No one within the organization believed he was actually stepping away, but everyone recognized that, by the end of the season, he felt worn down. Pelinka and Ham decided it was time to change their approach. LeBron was the oldest player in the league, just a few months away from turning thirty-nine and entering his 21st NBA season. They didn’t believe they could ask him to carry them anymore, even if he had crossed into the realm of legends like Tom Brady and Roger Federer, age-defying greats whose careers seemed to break biology’s rules.
Unlike in years past, the Lakers believed they now had enough talent and depth to limit LeBron’s minutes. Pelinka, preaching the value of continuity, had brought back Russell, Reaves, Hachimura, and Vanderbilt, but he’d also bolstered the roster along the edges, adding a pair of (theoretical) 3-and-D wings in Taurean Prince and Cam Reddish; Christian Wood, a talented reserve center; and Gabe Vincent, one of the league’s better backup point guards. The moves were widely praised, with many analysts listing the Lakers as one of the “winners” of the 2023 offseason.
In the lead-up to the 2023–24 season, Pelinka and Ham huddled with LeBron’s inner circle, a group that included Paul and Mike Mancias, LeBron’s trainer. They decided they’d start limiting LeBron to between 28 and 32 minutes every game, a steep drop from the previous season, when he averaged 35, but one they thought would ensure that he was fresh come playoff time. LeBron never joined in on the chats, but he passed along his approval.
“Everyone agreed on it,” a person with knowledge of the conversations said.
The plan was kept under wraps until the Lakers’ first game of the season. That night, against the Nuggets, who had gone on to win the title the previous June, LeBron played just 29 minutes in a 119–107 loss.
“I know you got me on fucking old-man time percentages and shit. Play eight minutes and shit,” he said to the coaching staff during one stoppage in play. “Two shots in eight minutes, just getting cardio. I hate this shit already. This shit’s garbage.”
Speaking to reporters after the game, LeBron acknowledged that he and the team had agreed on a minutes limit, but it was evident he wasn’t happy. Two nights later, LeBron played 35 minutes, including the entire fourth quarter, when he scored 10 of his 21 points, leading the Lakers to a 100–95 comeback win over the Suns. He played 39 minutes the next game and 42 two after that. Less than a week into the season, and just five months removed from him claiming that he was contemplating retirement, the minutes restriction was scrapped, the latest offseason plan put together by the Lakers and LeBron on which they’d fail to follow through.
This time, at least, doing so made sense. LeBron was playing at an All-NBA level, and feeling good and energized. On December 9, the Lakers were 14–9, good for fourth in the Western Conference. They were a bottom-10 offense, but with Davis healthy, they owned the league’s seventh-best defense. That night, they faced the Pacers in the championship game of the inaugural NBA Cup, an in-season tournament introduced to juice up the regular season. The game took place in Vegas, and while Davis led the way with 41 points and 20 rebounds, it was LeBron who set the tone. The Lakers attacked the rim, controlled the paint, and used their size and length to hound the Pacers’ guards en route to a 123–109 win. No one was confusing this accomplishment with a deep playoff run, but the intensity of the tournament games had surprised many observers. Winning it seemed to carry some weight.
LeBron, after playing some of his best games of the season during the tournament, was named MVP.
“The only thing I can say is,” Silver said while presenting the award, “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t come with a franchise.” ESPN’s Malika Andrews then asked LeBron what it meant to win.
“I don’t think it’s even about the MVP, I think it’s about us coming together to win this thing,” LeBron said. “Records will be broken, but one thing that will never be broken is to be the first to do something…and it’s great to do it with a historical franchise and just a great cast of funny, engaged, competitive men over here.”
Standing among his smiling teammates, LeBron looked happy.
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The tweet was posted late at night, just hours after an embarrassing 138–122 late-January loss to Atlanta, dropping the Lakers to 24–25. It was just a single emoji. No words, no hashtags, no context, and yet, no translation was needed, not when this was coming from LeBron at 2:26 a.m. with the trade deadline just nine days away.
“.”
His frustration had been building since the in-season tournament. What was supposed to serve as a building block had turned out to be, to that point, the peak of the season. After the win over the Pacers, the Lakers won just five of their next 17 games, killing all the momentum they had gained in Vegas. “We just suck right now,” LeBron told reporters after an early-January defeat at the hands of the Grizzlies.
The issues were familiar. The wings Pelinka had added in the offseason were struggling. Vincent and Vanderbilt couldn’t stay healthy, leaving Ham with a dearth of two-way players. Every lineup he deployed represented a choice between offense and defense.
In search of an answer, Ham cycled through numerous groupings. He tried playing Russell and Reaves together, like he had during the previous season’s playoff run, but didn’t like that neither could contain opposing ballhandlers. He tried providing the pairing with cover by replacing Hachimura in the starting lineup with Prince, who was a stronger defender, but doing so just weakened the offense without providing enough of a defensive boost. He tried using Reddish as a glue guy, but he was ineffective on offense and not consistent enough on defense. At the urging of LeBron—who believed he still had enough in his tank to carry an offense by himself—Ham tried surrounding him and Davis with the big, defense-first trio of Vanderbilt, Reddish, and Taurean Prince, but that unit couldn’t score enough to survive.
The incessant changes prevented any of the lineups from building chemistry. They also aggravated the players, who, more than anything else, craved defined roles. During one airing of grievances in which Ham was chastising the group, Russell asked, You mean there’s nothing wrong with the rotations? Stories about Davis going rogue on the court, and LeBron taking control of timeouts, and players mocking the way Ham always stuffed his hands into his pockets on the sidelines, started making the rounds in NBA circles. In early January, the knives came out. “Lakers Coach Darvin Ham’s Standing in Question amid Locker Room Disconnect,” read a headline in The Athletic. LeBron, never one for subtlety, then spent the next week going out of his way to praise Heat coach Erik Spoelstra (“Worth Every Single Cent of that contract!!!” he tweeted in response to news that Spoelstra had signed an eight-year, $120 million extension) and Clippers coach Tyronn Lue (“It don’t take T. Lue long to make sure shit get right,” he said when asked about the Clippers’ midseason turnaround).
Not even two months had passed since the NBA Cup title game, and LeBron’s entire demeanor had changed. He started coasting on defense. He’d slump his shoulders whenever Hachimura chucked up a contested shot, which happened often. He’d look over to Ham whenever Russell made the wrong pass or blew a defensive assignment, both frequent occurrences. He’d yell at Wood whenever he allowed a guard to finish around him at the rim, a regular result whenever Wood was in the game.
“And when LeBron’s doing that stuff, the other guys can all see it,” a Lakers coach said. “It created a fucked-up vibe in the locker room.”
The January loss to the Hawks appeared to break him. LeBron scored 20 points in nearly 36 minutes and added in nine rebounds and eight assists, but a sore left hip and an Achilles issue had sidelined Davis, and without him, the defense looked helpless. Russell had also gone cold, hitting just three of his 11 shots, all while having to contend with Hawks fans chanting, “We don’t want you!”—a response to recent reports that the Lakers were interested in sending him to Atlanta in exchange for point guard Dejounte Murray, a 2022 All-Star who also happened to be a Klutch client.
After the loss, a reporter asked LeBron what his message would be to his teammates to help the team get back on track.
“I don’t have any message for my teammates,” he said. “Just go out and do your job. I mean—”
Ta’Nisha Cooper, a Lakers flack who in the years since LeBron’s arrival had appointed herself his handler, jumped in.
“Thanks, LJ,” she said.
“Way to cut me off,” LeBron said. “Because I was about to…”
He trailed off.
Next up was a nationally televised game in Boston. Davis remained out, and LeBron, nursing a sore foot, decided to take the evening off, too. It was the Lakers’ third game in four nights, but Ham, sensing LeBron’s frustration, wondered if LeBron’s goal was for the Lakers to get crushed on national TV and Ham be blamed. And so before the game, Ham gave the players who were suiting up a rousing speech.
“When I look around this locker room, I see a bunch of young, hungry, talented pit bulls. And the only mistakes we can make is to not give multiple efforts and not have a next-play mentality,” he recalled saying. “Go to the basket, miss a layup? Fuck it. Next play. Referee calls a bullshit foul? Fuck it. Next play. Play great defense, they got an offensive rebound? Fuck it. Next play.”
Behind 32 points from Reaves, the Lakers pulled off one of their best wins of the season, a 114–105 upset. The trade deadline was now just a week away, and next up was a battle with the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, where there’d be even more media attention on LeBron than usual. This, LeBron believed, was an opportunity to turn up the heat on Pelinka. The Lakers had just one first-round pick available to trade, and LeBron, just like the previous year, wanted them to use it to improve the team. The difference this time around was that his contract gave him some leverage. He had a $51.4 million player option for the following season; if he declined, he’d be a free agent in the summer. His camp had already started wielding this weapon by spreading rumors around the NBA that LeBron was open to leaving LA.
The morning after the Celtics win, Paul called ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. “LeBron won’t be traded, and we aren’t asking to be,” he told him. Notably, though, he didn’t pass along any on-the-record updates about LeBron’s plans beyond the season. The next day, during a Lakers practice at Nike’s New York headquarters, LeBron spoke to reporters for the first time since his hourglass tweet. Leaning against a fence with his shoulders hunched, a white knit cap on his head and a sullen look on his face, LeBron fielded questions.
“There was a lot of speculation about what your tweet meant…Do you want to clarify?” Woike asked.
“No,” LeBron said softly.
“You have an option this summer with the Lakers, do you know what you’re gonna do?” McMenamin asked.
“No,” LeBron mumbled.
LeBron’s frustration was so evident that, in the lead-up to the trade deadline, two teams even called the Lakers to see if he was available. The first was the Sixers, whose top executive, Daryl Morey, never missed an opportunity to try reeling in a star. In fact, this wasn’t the first time that Morey had gone after LeBron despite knowing his odds of acquiring him were slim.
Back in the summer of 2014, when LeBron opted out of his contract with the Heat, Morey was running the Rockets. Like most of the NBA world, he was all but certain that LeBron would be signing with the Cavs. Yet even if he had only a one percent chance of landing LeBron, he figured it was still worth taking a swing.
That same summer, Morey was chasing free-agent point guard Kyle Lowry. Lowry was spending his summer in his hometown of Philadelphia; Morey’s plan was to show up at his door at midnight, when free agency officially started. Morey arrived in Philadelphia the day before and, instead of spending the evening in a hotel, camped out at the house of his close friend Sam Hinkie, the general manager of the 76ers. Morey was preparing his Lowry pitch when, at around 11 p.m., he heard from Rockets head coach (and Hall of Fame player) Kevin McHale.
I forgot to tell you, McHale told Morey. We got our time with LeBron.
It turned out that the reason Morey hadn’t yet heard from Klutch was because McHale, who was longtime friends with Mark Termini, already had. McHale had just neglected to pass the information along.
It’s at 2:30, McHale told Morey.
