LeBron James still hasn’t tipped his hand, and around Las Vegas that’s become part of the story. The league chatter is all over the map, but the actual information remains thin: James has what he needs, he’s making a decision, and nobody around him is pretending to know the answer with certainty.
The teams most often mentioned are Golden State, Cleveland, Miami and Philadelphia. San Antonio has surfaced too, though that talk sounds more like hopeful speculation than anything concrete. Rich Paul has already made one thing clear: money won’t be the deciding factor.
That leaves the basketball fit, the optics and the timing. Cleveland carries the obvious nostalgia angle, along with a roster that could use help on the wing.
Golden State has Stephen Curry and Draymond Green making pitches, both publicly and privately. Philadelphia, at least on paper, might give James the best shot at winning - but it’s hard to picture him sliding in as a fourth or fifth option there.
The timing is just as murky. James is scheduled to appear at Fanatics Fest this weekend, where he’ll co-host his podcast with Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton.
That has naturally fueled the idea that he could use the platform to reveal his plans. Maybe he will.
Maybe it’s just another stop on the calendar. Since he’s not trying to jam up anyone’s payroll, he can take his time - days, weeks, even longer.
If there was a true head-turner in Vegas over the last few days, though, it was Gary Trent Jr. and his new deal with Milwaukee. The sequence alone is enough to make people squint: in 2024, after averaging 13.7 points for Toronto, Trent signed a one-year, $2.6 million contract with the Bucks.
Last summer, he followed that with a two-year, $7.5 million deal that included a player option in the second season. Then came a season in which he posted career lows in scoring, at 8.1 points, and field goal percentage, at 38.7%.
After he opted out, Milwaukee handed him a four-year, $64 million contract.
The simplest read is that Trent took a pair of team-friendly deals that helped Milwaukee keep its books flexible during the Damian Lillard/Giannis Antetokounmpo era, and the Bucks then paid him back with a deal worth $16 million per year. Rival team sources told SI they viewed Trent as worth somewhere between the taxpayer midlevel exception, at $6 million, and the veteran’s minimum, at $3.9 million.
That’s why the word “circumvention” keeps hanging over the contract. The Bucks have not formally announced the deal, and the league office has not yet received it.
Once that happens, an investigation push is expected. Some rival executives think the contract itself is the punishment, forcing Milwaukee to live with the number.
Others say the bigger issue is what happens if the league doesn’t crack down on this kind of arrangement at all.
The Portland situation has its own uneasy feel. Tom Dundon was in Las Vegas this week with members of his ownership group and met with Adam Silver. Dundon has already built a reputation for cutting costs, from hotel expenses to staff salaries, and for handing head coach Micah Nori a contract that drew a strong response from the NBA Coaches Association.
Silver has defended him in public, but his comments Tuesday about the city’s talks with Dundon over Moda Center renovations carried a different tone. Dundon is trying to secure $600 million in public money for work on the 30-year-old arena, and Silver said the process has gone “off track.”
“I was hoping more progress would have been made by now on that agreement,” said Silver. “I have a colleague, [head of investor transactions] Joe Maczko, who is day-to-day on it.
We are working with both sides to ensure that the Trail Blazers can have a long-term future in Portland. But there are several open issues that still need to be resolved.”
The state has already approved $365 million in public funding, but the remaining money is supposed to come from the city and county, where resistance has grown. City councilors have pushed back on using Portland’s Clean Energy Fund, and officials say they need more details from the team on the renovations. The team’s response is that the city needs to commit to the funding first.
Dundon says he does not want to move the franchise, but the money fight has still created anxiety in the Pacific Northwest. And with the NBA preparing to add expansion teams in Seattle and Las Vegas, relocation would be harder anyway. Even so, Dundon’s stance is unmistakable: if the cash isn’t there, he’ll look elsewhere.
In Other News...
Bucks May Have Created A Guard Problem They Can't Ignore
The Bucks offseason guard picture got more complicated in a hurry, and it starts with the kind of move that can ripple through a roster for months. Milwaukee added Gary Trent Jr. on a deal that immediately drew scrutiny for its price, and now the backcourt looks crowded enough that outside observers are already trying to sort out who fits where once the season starts.
CBS Sports analyst Sam Quinn even floated Tyler Herro as a possible trade chip to help ease the logjam, with Detroit mentioned as a possible destination. But moving an All-Star-level guard just to create breathing room would be a risky way to clean up a problem of Milwaukees own making, especially when the Bucks have already invested heavily in a guard group that suddenly has more names than obvious answers. [Read more 🡒]
Bucks Suddenly Face A Bigger Jaime Jaquez Question Than Expected
Jaime Jaquez Jr. arrives in Milwaukee with the kind of contract setup that usually buys a team time, not urgency. He has one season left before restricted free agency, and the Bucks still control the right to match any outside offer next summer, so there is no immediate roster alarm around his future even as he settles in and adjusts to a new group.
Jaquez has made clear he is not spending much energy on the contract side right now, preferring to focus on fitting into the Bucks roster. The bigger question for Milwaukee is how quickly that fit turns into a larger on-court role, because a player in his position can go from useful addition to essential piece faster than the calendar suggests. [Read more 🡒]