The June Issue: LeBron’s Final Decision With Brian Windhorst

In the following excerpt from Monday’s show, Brian Windhorst tells Bryan Curtis about LeBron James’s complicated time as a Laker.

Bryan Curtis: I saw you say at the beginning of last season, you watched him play and he was struggling, and you said, “ESPN, we need to start our LeBron retirement plans right now. We need to get that in order,” and then of course he bounces back and has a great spring and a great postseason. When he makes this final decision or maybe final decision this year, what are the terms you think he’ll be thinking about? What will it take to get him to play another year, another two years in the NBA?

Brian Windhorst: I think he’s grappling with that right now because I think he loves being an NBA basketball player and I think—maybe not every day—but I think he loves playing basketball in Los Angeles. I think he loves being a Laker. The irony is I’m not sure the Lakers fans appreciate what he’s done for them. He had awkward timing with what happened with Kobe. He followed Kobe and then the tragedy happened and Kobe became—I mean, he was already an icon. Kobe became immortal, and Kobe became immortal at the same time LeBron came to terms with his own mortality in terms of as a basketball player. He was no longer able to make the Finals every single year, no matter who was on his team.

And he already was chasing a figurative ghost with Jordan because he can’t play against Jordan. He’s playing against a guy whose record is deemed untouchable. And now he has to play against a literal ghost. He has to play against the spirit of Kobe Bryant. He was never going to surpass it even if Kobe was alive and well and winning Oscars every third year. He would never have equaled Kobe in the Lakers fans’ minds. But now Kobe is—I mean, our offices in L.A. are directly next to the Kobe Bryant statue. And I work at all hours of the day in those offices, Bryan. I am in there routinely before 4 a.m. to be on East Coast television. People are at that statue 24/7. That statue outside the arena is a pilgrimage to Kobe. It is a shrine to Kobe.And it’s so appropriate, that statute. There’s all these statutes outside Crypto.com [Arena], and some of them are awesome and all of them have meaning. They just put up a Riley statue, for example, and … there’s a Magic statue that, the way they laid it out, passes to a Kareem statue. He’s doing a skyhook. And the Riley statue sort of in between them, like the coach who did it. It’s really all super well done. The Kobe statue is higher than all of them because Kobe reigns above all Lakers, and he’s had to follow that. And so it’s become complicated.

However, I think [James] likes being a Laker. Not every day, but I think he likes being a Laker. He’s building a $100 million compound in Beverly Hills. What he is building in Beverly Hills is like the Hearst mansion. I believe a hundred years from now, people will tour it. It will become a museum. That’s what he’s building in Los Angeles. That’s where his life and future is. He wants to play basketball there.

But the Lakers are in this point where they kind of need to move on, but if they move on from him won’t be as good. They don’t have a replacement. So there’s this awkward thing where they want to pivot to Luka, but they’re not quite 100 percent ready. So it’s just not clean. It’s not clean. And he’s probably still worth $50 million. In fact, he’s probably worth still $100 million. The Lakers paying him $100 million would still be a good business investment. But in the NBA, paying him $50 million is bad business, even though he’s earned it. …

And that’s the other thing. It’s so buried in nuance. It’s so very difficult. When Kobe was coming back from the Achilles [injury], the Lakers gave him this two-year contract that was a wild overpay, but they did it because it was the right thing to do because you honor Kobe, and that money and that last contract was part of Kobe. It kneecapped the franchise for a couple of years, but the franchise wasn’t going anywhere anyway so it was the only right thing to do.

Now here’s LeBron at the same moment where, rightfully, the Lakers should just give him a two-year deal for $100 million. That’s what they should do. But because of these 11 rules and these 15 reasons or whatever, they can’t really because every dollar they give to him is a dollar that they can’t spend on a center, which is what they really need to win.

And so the Laker tenure is just—the Cavs tenure had defined lines. We could see them. There was a hero arc. It was very simple to follow. The Lakers tenure, you need a translation. It’s very complicated. But he has enjoyed it and loved being a Laker. I really think that he will go into the Hall of Fame as a Cav, even though that’s not a thing in basketball, but he would be wearing the Cavs jersey on his bust. You don’t have it because you don’t have hats or whatever. And the Heatles are an iconic thing that happened in the NBA. He doesn’t have that in Los Angeles, but he’s played in Los Angeles longer than Miami and he’s gaining on his Cleveland years. He’s played in Los Angeles longer now than he’s ever played anywhere. The Cleveland, you put the years together, OK, it’s more in Cleveland total. But … if he retired today, he would not really be remembered as a Laker. So it’s complicated.