LeBron James sees and hears everything. Need proof?

“I mean, it sells papers a lot easier — and clippings and podcasts — if you say, ‘LeBron, the team is better off without him,’” James told reporters earlier this month after the Lakers beat the Miami Heat. “A lot of people will view it. So, I get it…They’re absolutely wrong.”

LeBron notably left out blogs, so let’s put his notion to the test.

The notion that the Lakers were better off without LeBron had been floating around this season, in large part due to some concerning on/off splits. As Sam Amick of The Athletic noted, lineups featuring LeBron, Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves had a minus-4.9 net rating in 238 combined minutes through Feb. 27 this season.

Since then, that trio has boasted a net rating of plus-21.1 in 287 minutes.

So, no, the Lakers are not better off without LeBron this season. Next season, though? That’s an entirely different question.

Why Reaves’ cap hold is the key

After last year’s trade deadline, we broke down why Austin Reaves was the key to the Lakers’ post-LeBron future. The TL;DR version: He’s going to be in a unique spot as a free agent—one which could greatly benefit the Lakers.

Reaves figures to sign a max or near-max contract this offseason once he inevitably turns down his $14.9 million player option for the 2026-27 season. However, since he’s not coming off a standard rookie-scale contract, he’ll count differently against the Lakers’ books than a former first-round pick would.

At $13.9 million this season, Reaves is earning more than the NBA’s average salary. Until the Lakers re-sign him or he signs elsewhere as a free agent, his cap hold will be 150% of his salary this year, or roughly $20.9 million.

Based on the current $165 million projection for the 2026-27 salary cap, a max contract for someone with Reaves’ amount of NBA experience would start at $41.25 million. Reaves will count against the Lakers’ books as more than $20 million less than that at the start of free agency.

From there, it’s just order of operations. The Lakers figure to first spend their roughly $50 million in cap space — a figure which includes Reaves’ cap hold — before re-signing Reaves. Since they have full Bird rights on Reaves, they’re allowed to re-sign him to anything up to a max deal even if they’re over the salary cap.

The Philadelphia 76ers did this same trick with Tyrese Maxey during the 2024 offseason, which is what gave them enough cap space to sign Paul George in free agency. Maxey had a cap hold of only $13 million, but he wound up signing a max deal starting at $35.5 million after the Sixers spent the rest of their cap space. (In retrospect, they might have been better off not taking advantage of Maxey’s cheap cap hold.)

Much like the Sixers in 2024, Reaves’ below-market cap hold is a use-it-or-lose-it opportunity for the Lakers. Once he signs his next contract, he’ll be on the books for that amount moving forward. This offseason is their only chance to take advantage of the Reaves’ cap-hold maneuver.

That brings us back to LeBron.

How much less would LeBron take?

According to Spotrac’s Keith Smith, the Lakers, Chicago Bulls and Brooklyn Nets are the only three teams projected to have at least $40 million of cap space this offseason. The Atlanta Hawks and Detroit Pistons could each have at least $25 million, but there’s a chance both operate as over-the-cap teams instead.

So, barring a sign-and-trade, LeBron doesn’t have an obvious destination that can pay him anywhere close to a max contract this offseason. The Lakers could do so, but they shouldn’t.

If Reaves signs a max or near-max deal this offseason, he and Luka are going to gobble up more than 50% of the Lakers’ cap space each year moving forward. The Lakers will still have flexibility to retool around those two, but because of the Reaves cap-hold trick, this offseason is their best opportunity to either bring in a third star or land players on medium-sized contracts to round out their supporting cast.

The free-agent class has already begun to get picked clean by extensions, but plenty of starter-caliber players are still set to hit the market. They could throw big money at a restricted free agent such as Walker Kessler, Peyton Watson or Bennedict Mathurin, or they could go hunting for value among the unrestricted free agents. Either way, the opportunity to play alongside Luka and Reaves should make the Lakers an especially appealing destination. (Lakers Exceptionalism strikes again!)

If LeBron is willing to settle for the $9.4 million room mid-level exception, he wouldn’t cut into the Lakers’ spending power at all. They could spend their cap space first, then sign LeBron with the room MLE and re-sign Reaves. But if he wants more than that, he would eat into their cap space.

If the Lakers go on a deep playoff run this season, perhaps they’ll decide it’s worth bringing him back for a farewell tour even if it comes at the expense of their long-term future. However, they’ve spent all year signaling that they’re firmly focused on the Dončić era moving forward. That decreases the likelihood that they’d be willing to spend major money to bring back James, no matter how impactful he might still be.

So, Lakers fans should enjoy these next few months with LeBron. They very well might be his last in a Lakers uniform.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.