On Monday, the Cleveland Cavaliers were swept out of the Eastern Conference finals by the New York Knicks. They were embarrassed in Game 4, 130-93, and some feel they quit at some point in the series.
Now that the Cavaliers are out of the NBA playoffs, speculation seems to be ramping up a bit about LeBron James possibly leaving the Los Angeles Lakers to return to Cleveland for one more go-around. Unless the Cavs make some major roster changes, he would have to take a humongous pay cut in order to join them for next season.
Brian Windhorst, who has covered James since the superstar was in high school in Akron, Ohio, said that the 41-year-old is “not prepared’ to take a $3 million veteran minimum salary, which would amount to roughly a $50 million pay cut, per ESPN Cleveland (h/t Lakers Daily).
“I see people out there, not just Cleveland people, but people saying, ‘Oh, LeBron could sign with the [Golden State] Warriors,’ or, ‘LeBron could sign with the [Miami] Heat,’ or ‘LeBron could sign with the Cavs,’” Windhorst said. “This is not Aaron Rodgers, where you can wait and then they’ve got 25 million in cap space just laying around.
“The Cavs, today, can sign LeBron for $3 million. Three. He made 54 this year, okay? To my knowledge, LeBron is not prepared to take that type of pay cut.”
It is hard to imagine any NBA superstar going from making a max or supermax salary to a veteran minimum salary, even for what could be the final season of his career. James made $52.6 million this season, and he has never made less than $4 million during any of his 23 seasons in the league.
If he wants to go to Cleveland, it may have to come through a sign-and-trade deal, but that could weaken Cleveland to the point where it would not have enough talent to make a deep playoff run next year.
The Lakers seem to have an advantage over other teams when it comes to vying for James’ services because they could offer him tens of millions of dollars due to the ample salary cap space they will have. But they have other players they will want to re-sign in free agency this summer, and they will undoubtedly want to secure at least one outside player in free agency, so the math will not be easy to work out.
James hinted in a recent episode of his “Mind the Game’ podcast that he may not be ready to make a decision on next season until deep into this summer.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Windhorst: LeBron James is ‘not prepared’ to take minimum salary
Reporting by Robert Marvi, LeBron Wire / LeBron Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
