{"id":586860,"date":"2026-02-06T19:51:43","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T19:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/586860\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T19:51:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T19:51:43","slug":"the-lebron-james-to-cleveland-rumors-are-heating-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/586860\/","title":{"rendered":"The LeBron James to Cleveland rumors are heating up"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fuel on the \u201cLeBron James is coming back to Cleveland\u201d fire is seemingly getting gasoline poured on it from every corner. Noted The Athletic columnist Jason Lloyd spoke on 92.3 The Fan<\/a> and dumped even more lighter fluid on the rumor (or at this point, league-wide assumption) that James will end his tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> and rejoin the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> for one last ride.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf (LeBron) plays anywhere next year, it\u2019s going to be here,\u201d Lloyd said. \u201cHe\u2019s not going back to LA.\u201d Lloyd also went on to give his experience as someone who saw the writing on the wall in Cleveland in 2018 when it became apparent that James was leaving the Cavaliers for the second time. \u201cI\u2019ve seen this movie before.\u201d<\/p>\n

James and the Lakers have been at odds seemingly for quite some time, whether that be due to the roster or the head coach. With the acquisition of Luka Doncic, who immediately became the face of the franchise in Los Angeles, it further alienated James \u2014 who rarely plays second fiddle to anyone. Even to a top-five player in the league like Doncic.<\/p>\n

There are two questions that remain in this fairytale. The first one is if James decides to play again, which is not a given. The 41-year-old is still throwing down reverse dunks and nabbing alley-oops, but there is no guarantee that he will take the court after this season. The second question is how much money he will ask for as an unrestricted free agent playing likely his last year in the NBA.<\/p>\n

James is an anomaly, an alien of basketball with a physical fitness level unseen in the league before. This isn\u2019t Paul Pierce signing a deal to retire in a Boston Celtics<\/a> jersey. The Cavs would be leveled up with James on the roster. But that comes at a price, and it won\u2019t be the league minimum value.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t think he is going to take a league-minimum from Dan [Gilbert],\u201d Lloyd continued. \u201cFind a way to get to the mid-level [exception], have to get under the [second] apron, there\u2019s other conversations that have to be had.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cavs did good work this past week or so to put themselves in a position to get under the dreaded second apron with the trades of De\u2019Andre Hunter and Lonzo Ball, and they have some expiring salary they can shed. It\u2019s worth noting that they would need to get out of more than just the second apron to get full access to the mid-level exception.<\/p>\n

That said, if there is a willingness from both sides to make it work out from a salary perspective, there\u2019s a good chance it will in the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fuel on the \u201cLeBron James is coming back to Cleveland\u201d fire is seemingly getting gasoline poured on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[78898,7,75,306,305,193,3846,568,78897,185,4442,251,150,368,6,1927,2078],"class_list":["post-586860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-92-3-the-fan","tag-basketball","tag-boston-celtics","tag-cavaliers","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-clevelandcavaliers","tag-getty-images","tag-jason-lloyd","tag-lebron-james","tag-lonzo-ball","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-oh","tag-paul-pierce"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116025431865333019","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586860","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=586860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}