NBA executive: LeBron James 'made a mistake' by staying with Lakers

USA Today

19-07-2025

In all likelihood, LeBron James will remain a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, at the very least, to start the upcoming NBA season. When he exercised his player option for the 2025-26 campaign, his agent, Rich Paul, issued a statement that many interpreted as one that at least kept the door open to a trade request, but according to a recent report, James is expected to be with the Lakers when training camp starts.
One reason he's expected to stay put is the reality of how difficult it would be to work out a trade that would send him to a team that would have enough talent remaining to immediately contend for the NBA championship. Some feel that if he wanted to go to another team badly enough, he should've simply opted out and signed elsewhere as a free agent.
While the Lakers appear to have a very good roster right now, they aren't a championship contender, and Paul's statement made it clear that James wants to win a fifth ring. One NBA executive said that the superstar's best bet would've been to join the Cleveland Cavaliers, his original team, and that he "made a mistake" by picking up his player option.
Via Hoops Wire:
'I'm not gonna sit here and tell someone to say no to over $50 million, but LeBron is a billionaire, man,' the NBA exec said. 'He has enough money and makes enough off the court. If I were in his camp, I would have told him to decline his player option with the Lakers and sign with the Cavs. That would have been the smart play.
'Do you know how dangerous Cleveland would have been? LeBron starting next to Donovan [Mitchell], Evan [Mobley], Jarrett [Allen] and Darius [Garland]? They would have walked to the NBA Finals and it would have been a storybook ending for LeBron to finish his career in Cleveland. I think he made a mistake.'
Obviously, James would've had to take a major pay cut to sign with the Cavs, who entered the offseason over the second apron of the NBA's salary cap. They were considered one of the favorites to reach the NBA Finals this past season after going 64-18, but they got slammed in the second round of the playoffs by the Indiana Pacers.
With the Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton and Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum expected to miss most, if not all, of the upcoming season, the Cavaliers could've had an easy path to the championship series by adding James.
James, of course, spent his first seven seasons with the Cavs after they took him with the No. 1 pick in the 2003 draft. He left in free agency to join the Miami Heat in 2010, but the Akron, Ohio native returned to the Cavs in 2014 and got them their first NBA title two years later.
At this point, the only realistic way for James to return to them is through a contract buyout this offseason, which seems even more unlikely than a trade. That is because, as a second apron team, Cleveland cannot aggregate salaries in a trade.