{"id":135506,"date":"2025-06-30T02:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T02:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/135506\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T02:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T02:17:12","slug":"cavaliers-fans-bracing-for-lebron-james-return-after-lakers-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/135506\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavaliers Fans Bracing for LeBron James Return After Lakers News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cavaliers Fans Bracing for LeBron James Return After Lakers News<\/a> originally appeared on Athlon Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James has exercised his\u00a0$52.6 million player option for next season. While things had been trending in this direction, there was a more unexpected twist to the news on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

According to ESPN’s Shams Charania<\/a>, James is closely monitoring how the Lakers build out their roster this offseason, and if championship contention is a realistic expectation.<\/p>\n

“LeBron wants to compete for a championship,” Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul told ESPN. “He knows the Lakers are building for the future. He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all. We are very appreciative of the partnership that we’ve had for eight years with Jeanie [Buss] and Rob [Pelinka] and consider the Lakers as a critical part of his career.”<\/p>\n

\"Los<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23).Candice Ward-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Amid this growing uncertainty, a return to the Cleveland Cavaliers is something both fans and analysts were quick to place on the table. To be clear, there is no reporting on this being a likelihood, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation from mounting.<\/p>\n

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Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo Sports ignited this discussion with a lengthy post on X, detailing the complications of a James to Cleveland reunion, but also acknowledging the non-zero chance of it taking place.<\/p>\n

Amid this, ESPN Cleveland<\/a> asked fans, “Would you take LeBron James back on the Cavs?”<\/p>\n

“Yea you have to east is wide open,” replied one.<\/p>\n

“Yup and if you say no you\u2019re lying,” said another.<\/p>\n

“Absolutely,” one added.<\/p>\n

“Any minute. No question,” added another.<\/p>\n

“OBVIOUSLY,” exclaimed one.<\/p>\n

“Anyone saying no bc of age or salary does not watch basketball lol,” said another.<\/p>\n

Related: Lakers Fans Excited After Chris Paul News<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: Dalton Knecht Named in Lakers Trade Report on Saturday<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jun 29, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cavaliers Fans Bracing for LeBron James Return After Lakers News originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Los Angeles Lakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,20502,305,193,3846,791,130,1178,3115,185,150,872,6,26672,564,567],"class_list":{"0":"post-135506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-championship-contention","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-darius-garland","15":"tag-espn","16":"tag-jarrett-allen","17":"tag-kevin-oconnor-2","18":"tag-lebron-james","19":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","20":"tag-max-strus","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-realistic-expectation","23":"tag-rich-paul","24":"tag-shams-charania"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114769916928427278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}