Lakers famous person LeBron James will as soon as once more make NBA historical past by enjoying in his twenty third NBA season.
James exercised his participant choice for $52.6 million to play for the Lakers throughout the 2025-26 season, his agent and CEO of Klutch Sports activities Wealthy Paul informed The Occasions on Sunday morning.
James, the NBA’s all-time main scorer, had been tied with Vince Carter for essentially the most seasons performed within the NBA at 22. This will likely be James’ eighth season with the Lakers.
James, 40, is 50 video games away from breaking Corridor of Famer Robert Parish’s report for essentially the most video games performed within the common season.
James averaged 24.4 factors per sport final season, 8.2 assists and seven.8 rebounds.
Fellow Laker Dorian Finney-Smith reportedly declined his $15.3-million participant choice and can pursue free company. Finney-Smith, who’s coming off a robust season with the Lakers, is anticipated to be pursued by a number of groups. He may nonetheless return to the Lakers. ESPN was first to report Finney-Smith’s resolution.
Final week, Austin Reaves declined the group’s most provide of 4 years for $89 million, in keeping with an individual with information of the scenario.
Reaves, 27, nonetheless has two years left on his deal, for $13.9 million subsequent season and $14.9 million within the 2026-27 season, and he holds a participant choice for the final yr of his deal.
Lakers ahead LeBron James (23) and teammate Austin Reaves react to a referee’s name throughout a 2025 NBA playoff sport towards Minnesota.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Occasions)
He was third on the Lakers in scoring final season, averaging career-highs in scoring (20.2), assists (5.8), rebounds (4.5) and minutes per sport (34.9). He shot 46% from the sphere and 37.7% from three-point vary.
With the James and Smith participant choice questions resolved Sunday, the Lakers are targeted on filling out their roster. They added an athletic wing participant once they acquired Adou Thiero in a commerce with the Minnesota Timberwolves, who drafted him with the thirty sixth choose within the second spherical.
Essentially the most urgent want for the Lakers stays a middle, they usually’ll need to look into free company or through commerce to amass one.
The Lakers have the taxpayer mid-level exception of about $5.65 million to spend.
“As I said at the end of the year, we know one of the things we have to address is the center position and that’s clearly going to be one of our focuses as we begin the free-agency period,” Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, informed Spectrum SportsNet after the second spherical of the draft Thursday. “… “So, we’re looking forward to just putting in the hard work and making sure we take care of all the needs on the roster to give [Lakers coach] JJ [Redick] the tools he needs for this team to be great next season.”
