LeBron James Reportedly May Be Interested In Meeting With The Warriors During Free Agency This Summer

ESPN- If the Golden State Warriors can create a max salary slot this offseason, the defending NBA champions could position themselves to secure a meeting with LeBron James, league sources told ESPN. There is no indication that Golden State is evaluating such options to acquire the Cleveland Cavaliers star at this time. Out of respect for the Warriors’ winning culture, James would listen if Golden State explored ways to clear the necessary cap space, sources said.

This offseason, James is expected to decline his $35.6 million player option and become an unrestricted free agent for the third time in his career, although re-signing with Cleveland is not out of the question.

James and his business team have been known to covet structure, if he were to leave his hometown team. With Golden State, an ultra-aggressive general manager in Bob Myers, the ownership group as a whole and coach Steve Kerr are the epitome of that.

A sign-and-trade scenario would be the most realistic way for Golden State to acquire James. The Warriors could build an offer around Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala to match salary and tempt the Cavaliers into making a deal, according to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton. To make a sign-and-trade possible, Golden State also would need Kevin Durant to decline his player option and take even less than his current annual salary of $25 million, in addition to moving Shaun Livingston’s salary to a team with cap space. Golden State probably would have to fill out its bench with players making the league minimum.

Look, I know this almost definitely isn’t going to happen. Everything in this report seems like it is being held together by wet glue, the Warriors would be messing with a pretty good thing they have going on out there, and LeBron would never pull a move like this.

*Thinks about that last part for 2 milliseconds*

Okay, LeBron would DEFINITELY pull a move like this. But stupid rumor shit like this is part of the fun that comes with being an NBA fan and why the NBA is so awesome 12 months a year. Connecting dots about which players played together in AAU, who shares agents, who was spotted at which airport, who just started following who on social media, and every emoji tweet. Oh yeah and the Photoshops. The glorious Photoshops. Seeing LeBron wearing a Warriors jersey sent a chill down my spine. That’s like Darth Vader appearing in his suit for the first time.

I’m by no means a LeBron fan and him going to the Warriors would probably be terrible for the competitiveness of the NBA. But I would love it. I want LeBron to embrace the supervillain role and go full heel by joining the nWo of the NBA. The NBA is probably a wrap for the next few seasons anyway with the current Warriors roster. Why not see what basketball would look like with Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and LeBron on the same team? If LeBron subtweeted his teammates after a rough game, there is always a chance that Draymond could break LeBron’s dick at practice. And think of all the hot takes that would come out if the Dubs started 0-3 with LeBron.

The only downside to all this is that I’m pretty sure LeBron signing with the Warriors would cause Portnoy’s head to explode and Barstool would have to put it’s succession plan in place and I’m pretty sure we don’t have anything close to a succession plan in place. Getting to the moon is definitely going to be tougher with a headless Pres.

Then again, it wouldn’t shock me in the least if all this stuff was leaked by LeBron’s camp so when he signs with the Rockets or Lakers or anywhere that isn’t Cleveland, we all can say “At least it wasn’t the Warriors”.

P.S. I know this is probably nothing but pure coincidence, but the fact that my blog about the “Kevin Durant to the Warriors” rumors really kicking up a notch was almost two years ago to the day actually makes me believe this LeBron stuff like 5% more than I did previously.

What if the first few days of Februrary is when the good NBA sources come out and start prepping us for the Woj Bombs that will drop in the summer? Okay, that’s ridiculous. So is all of this to be honest. But it’s also fun as hell to talk about because you never know with LeBron or any NBA superstar in the #superteam era.