The Los Angeles Lakers took care of their biggest offseason priority by agreeing to terms with star guard Austin Reaves on a four-year, $185 million contract to keep Reaves in Tinseltown.

With Reaves and superstar guard Luka Doncic, the Lakers have their star-studded backcourt locked in with the 1-2 punch of what they hope will be a championship-level roster secured.

But now, the Lakers’ attention turns to what the roster will look like. 

And that starts with addressing the status of the most coveted unrestricted free agent in the league: superstar forward LeBron James. 

James, who’ll turn 42 in December, and the Lakers have started negotiations about a new contract that would bring the league’s all-time leading scorer back to Los Angeles for a record-extending 24th NBA season. 

Although James hasn’t officially confirmed whether he’ll return to the NBA for another season, most league personnel aren’t expecting for him to retire and believe he’ll play at least one more season. 

The Lakers have made it clear they wanted James back in the Purple and Gold for a ninth consecutive season, which would be James’ longest consecutive tenure with a franchise. 

“We probably haven’t seen a player that has honored the game to the extent that he’s honored the game,” Lakers President of Basketball Operations and General Manager Rob Pelinka said last month. “He’s given so much to his teammates, to this organization. And the thing we want to do more than anything else is honor him back.”

“The first order of business there is allowing him to spend the time he needs to decide what his next steps are: Does he want to play another year in the NBA? And that’ll be, as he said to you guys last night, family time, time with his inner circle,” Pelinka continued. “And we just want to honor that for him. Of course, any team, including ours, would love to have LeBron James on their roster. That’s a blessing in itself just with what he does.”

Even with Reaves returning to the Lakers on a contract that’ll feature him getting a $27-plus million raise, the new deal doesn’t have an impact on the franchise’s negotiations with James.

Since it became clear that Reaves was going to opt out of his player option for 2026-27 to become an unrestricted free agent and set himself up for a significant payday this summer, the plan was for the Lakers to take advantage of Reaves’ $20.9 million cap hold so they would maintain the salary cap flexibility to make whatever moves in this offseason before officially re-signing Reaves. 

And James and his unique situation were always part of the equation.

Even with James being as productive and impactful at this stage of his career, the expectation around the league is that he’d have to take a significant pay cut next season from the $52 million salary he had in 2025-26. 

Whether that was from the Lakers, who can offer James a higher salary than any other team, or another team, remains to be seen.

But for James to be a part of a championship-level roster, whether that’s the Lakers’ group led by Doncic and Reaves or another team, he’ll have to take the pay cut. 

ESPN’s Bobby Marks said he’d offer James a one-year, $30 million deal with a full no-trade clause in his free agent rankings last month. BBall Index estimated he produced a contract value of $35.5 million during the 2025-26 season. 

NBA Salary Model estimated a $22.7 million contract value for James in 2026-27 if he plays 70 regular games, which is in line with the number of games he played in 2023-24 and 2024-25. But if he’s able to be close to as impactful as he was in 2024-25 — before his 2025 offseason leading into the 2025-26 season was hampered by recovering from a knee injury and sciatica — the estimate gets closer to $31 million.

A one-year contract in the $25-30 million range for James would still provide the Lakers with enough space to build a competitive roster.

And maybe a roster good enough to compete with the best teams in the West.

But will that be good enough for James? 

We’ll soon find out. 

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