{"id":44662,"date":"2025-05-20T05:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T05:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/44662\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T05:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T05:52:09","slug":"brian-windhorst-on-whether-lebron-james-will-leave-lakers-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/44662\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Windhorst on whether LeBron James will leave Lakers this summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the first things the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> need to do this summer is get an answer from LeBron James on what he plans to do with his basketball career moving forward. He has a player option for next season, and he can either play on it or opt out and sign a slightly longer new contract.<\/p>\n

Of course, he could also decide to leave the Lakers or simply retire, but many, if not most, expect him to be back next season and to be wearing a Purple and Gold uniform. However, things have clearly shifted for the franchise after it acquired Luka Doncic, as its priority is now to build a team for and around Doncic rather than James.<\/p>\n

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Brian Windhorst, who has covered James for over 20 years, is one of those who doubts the 40-year-old superstar is going anywhere. He said on “The Dan Patrick Show”<\/a> that he sees James staying put.<\/p>\n

“I would never cement it just because the Lakers are pivoting a little bit now,” Windhorst said. “Not a little bit. They\u2019ve pivoted to Luka. And so that makes their medium-term future a little bit harder to predict, but LeBron has demonstrated repeatedly, time after time after time, his priority is to be a Laker and to live in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

“Unless the Lakers did something to him to change the way he feels about them, which is not their MO, I don\u2019t see that happening.”<\/p>\n

James averaged 24.4 points, 8.2 assists and 7.8 rebounds a game this season. Barring a major injury, he clearly seems to have quite a bit left in his tank and can probably continue to play at or near his current level for at least one more season.<\/p>\n

He reportedly did suffer a sprained MCL<\/a> in L.A.’s final playoff game versus the Minnesota Timberwolves a few weeks ago, but it isn’t expected to hamper his offseason training regimen or his plans moving forward.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Brian Windhorst on whether LeBron James will leave Lakers this summer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the first things the Los Angeles Lakers need to do this summer is get an answer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,2949,4034,1698,300,4044,185,251,150,4033,4043,368,152,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-44662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brian-windhorst","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-lakers","12":"tag-lakers","13":"tag-lalakers","14":"tag-lebron-james","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-losangeleslakers","19":"tag-luka-doncic","20":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","21":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114538607036500099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44662","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=44662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}