The Athletic’s Sam Amick: How Money Complicates LeBron’s Lakers Future

LeBron James and the Lakers ended the season unofficially un-divorced. Whether they can stay together comes down to math, in The Athletic's Sam Amick's framing.

Amick joined the show from the NBA Combine and walked Rich through the LeBron piece in detail.

The starting point was the season's arc.

"If you would have asked me in December how it was going and what his future might hold with the Lakers, it felt like they had unofficially divorced already," Amick said. "That changed, you know, what they did on the back end of the season. Specifically, March where they go 15-2 and LeBron shows a willingness to be the third option."

The Luka injury changed it again.

"He's back in that alpha-male role out of necessity when Luka and Austin go down," Amick said.

The door for a Lakers return is open. The numbers, in Amick's reporting, are the wedge.

"The door is open for a Lakers return, but it's just a major question about the finances and making the numbers work," Amick said.

The Lakers, Amick said, told Luka something specific when he arrived.

"They told Luka when he came to town that, you know, we will build a contending balanced two-way roster around you, somewhat similar to the one that you took to the finals in Dallas a couple years back," Amick said. "That's where the LeBron and Austin situations get tricky, because the price point might be the sort of thing that leads to a divorce."

The alternative locations are the obvious ones.

"For LeBron, you then wonder, is he actually willing to move out of LA and do something in Cleveland or do something in Golden State?" Amick said.

Rich asked about timing. Amick set it at late June.

"Obviously July one we're talking free agency," Amick said. "The talking happens long before then. The next week or so, you're going to have the annual LeBron chatting with his family. A world does exist when he goes home to his wife and kids and says, I think I've played enough basketball. I don't think that'll happen, but you got to decide do you want to play, then you got to decide what does it look like with the Lakers. We'll probably get some clarity and a whole lot of chatter in late June."

The Austin Reaves piece of the offseason is where Amick reported the most interesting wrinkle.

The Luka quote Amick brought to the show was specific.

"Luca has made it clear to the Lakers that he wants to play with Austin and that he would prefer that they don't swap him for another star player," Amick said.

The roster math becomes the constraint.

"The only realistic pathway, even though Austin's up, looking at a sign-and-trade, the idea of having Austin Reaves and LeBron and another star player, unless you have LeBron signing a minimum contract, which nobody expects him to do, then that math just doesn't math," Amick said.

The Austin Reaves market is real.

"He's coming off a very good year," Amick said. "I understand the playoffs were tough for him. But other executives during the course of the season had kind of projected that this could be a guy that is in the mid-$30 million range, maybe all the way up to $40 million. That's just not the kind of money the Lakers can give him and have a balanced roster."

The summary, in Amick's framing, is the fork the Lakers are facing.

"That's kind of the fork in the road they're looking at," Amick said.