{"id":773446,"date":"2026-06-29T07:42:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T07:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/773446\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T07:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T07:42:17","slug":"lakers-latest-move-is-a-clue-about-lebron-james-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/773446\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers&#8217; latest move is a clue about LeBron James situation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/teams\/los_angeles_lakers\/89\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> still don&#8217;t know if they&#8217;ll have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/players\/lebron_james\/4544\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">LeBron James<\/a> back next season, and that puts the team&#8217;s future a bit in limbo. It&#8217;d be best to know either way if James is coming back, but they don&#8217;t have that luxury right now.<\/p>\n<p>James has been a staple of the Lakers&#8217; franchise for eight seasons. It&#8217;s almost hard to envision Los Angeles without James at this point, but this situation could really go either way.<\/p>\n<p>There was a lot of anticipation surrounding the Lakers&#8217; moves in the NBA draft because what they did would inevitably provide a clue into where they are with the James situation. As it turns out, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Be9hPrnx6nI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Los Angeles&#8217; pick<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/players\/cameron_carr\/930212\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cameron Carr<\/a> at No. 24 did offer a clue into what the powers that be are thinking.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLakers&#8217; NBA Draft move provides a clue about LeBron James and Los Angeles<\/p>\n<p>By picking Carr, the Lakers are sending a message that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/articles\/cameron_carr_excited_to_learn_from_luka_doncic_austin_reaves\/s1_17074_44004504\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">they&#8217;re building<\/a> around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/players\/luka_doncic\/548309\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Luka Doncic<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/players\/austin_reaves\/592508\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Austin Reaves<\/a> and are ready to move forward with or without James. They didn&#8217;t get a player to complement James. They took a player who&#8217;s athletic, versatile and will complement their core, but not necessarily a player who&#8217;s expected to become the face of the franchise one day. At 21 years old, the Lakers also picked a player who they know can start from day one and won&#8217;t need a ton of development.<\/p>\n<p>The clue here is that the Lakers are more than ready to move forward without James. Sure, they&#8217;d probably like to have him back. He&#8217;s been the face of the team for years. But, if it doesn&#8217;t work out, they&#8217;ve drafted a player who can help them move forward with the stars that they already have solidified for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers still don&#8217;t know if they&#8217;ll have LeBron James back next season, and that puts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,11],"class_list":["post-773446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-nba-playoffs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116832275251567472","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773446","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=773446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}