Stephen A. Smith isn’t pretending there’s any warmth left in his relationship with LeBron James, and he didn’t hold back when he looked at how the Lakers handled the end of James’ run in Los Angeles.
On “ The Stephen A. Smith Show,” the ESPN analyst argued that the Lakers sent James a clear message in three different ways: by handing the franchise to Luka Doncic, by asking him to fall behind Austin Reaves, and by pushing him toward a massive pay cut.
“You’re a superstar in this league, getting paid $50 million. Luka comes in, and they immediately hand him the franchise, which is no crime.
He feels dismissed and disrespected to some degree,” Smith began. “Then you ask him to be a third option, deferring to Austin Reaves.”
That point tied directly to what happened last season. James missed the first 14 games, and during that stretch the Lakers’ offense took off with Doncic and Reaves steering everything.
When James came back, he adjusted and remained a major part of the attack. Later on, though, he was asked to slide even further down the pecking order and let the backcourt duo run the offense.
Smith wasn’t done there. He said the Lakers piled on the disrespect by making the money situation part of the picture too.
“Then after you do all of that, you’re talking about him taking anywhere from a $30 to a $40 million pay cut,” Smith continued. “Listen, we can’t just look at somebody and say, ‘Oh, they’re a mercenary, and they’re just going to the highest bid.’
That’s not what this is. Y’all got to remember.
The Chicago Bulls underpaid Michael Jordan for years. And then the last two years of his career in Chicago, he got $30 million and $33 million, respectively.”
Smith then widened the lens to what Jordan meant to the league financially, saying teams were even floating the idea of special treatment for him.
“You even had people around the league like Pat Riley and others saying that it should be entertained, that every team should chip in to pay Michael Jordan, and that cap constraints shouldn’t apply to him. Because he’s meant so much to the financial backbone of the league, everybody should play a role in paying Michael Jordan because he helped get everybody paid.”
The comparison is obvious enough: Jordan helped turn the NBA into a global money machine, and Smith’s point was that the league’s stars have long been central to the sport’s financial growth. He acknowledged that James hasn’t had the same impact, but still argued that what the Lakers were asking from him didn’t add up.
The numbers back up part of that case. At 41, James still posted 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game last season. Smith’s view was that production like that still looks like max-contract material, even if the Lakers’ roster-building plans around Doncic pointed in a different direction.
And now that James is out of Los Angeles, there’s at least one practical upside: he gets to choose where he goes next. Reports say his decision won’t be “financially driven,” which leaves several teams in the mix. Even so, if winning remains the priority, only a few can realistically make a run at the four-time NBA champion.
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