Lakers Rumors: LeBron James trade scenarios coming out
By Ronald Agers
Los Angeles Lakers rumors have been running rampant in recent weeks. Could LeBron James actually be on the way out of Los Angeles?
This has been an interesting time for the Los Angeles Lakers for the last 10 to 11 months with plenty of Lakers rumors popping up along the way.
Fans went from the heights of eternal optimism to basically wondering what this franchise is doing. I really don’t know which scenario is the bigger shock. Is it the fact that the LeBron James led Lakers did not make the playoffs or the laundry list of missteps that caused it?
The phrase “I didn’t sign up for this” doesn’t just apply to LeBron James, who might really be in the state of shock. It applies to Magic Johnson, who quit approximately an hour before the final game of the season. It applies to the young core of Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram, who got caught up in the biggest soap opera in the NBA this season.
With all of the rumors and drama surrounding the Lakers, sometimes the fans can honestly coin the phrase.
LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are a match in attention making hell these days. You are matching the most storied franchise in sports (Lakers) with the most powerful player in the world (LeBron James). The pairing was going to either be really good or really bad. There wasn’t going to be a gray area here.
It even has gone as far as to affect the sports media as well. On social media, numerous websites and even comments on the articles here at Lake Show Life, there are complaints of “clickbait” or lack of substance on what is going on news-wise.
Even though I understand the frustration of fans feeling this way, it is the nature of the business. The NBA actually set it up that way. The NBA is trying to catch the NFL in popularity and is doing so by creating 12 month storylines to keep the fans buzzing. Sometimes it gets the best of us.
It starts and ends with LeBron James. I mean, what could set the NBA media buzzing if LeBron James even was considered to be traded. Let’s go back about a week to Stephen A. Smith on SportsCenter after the Lakers blew the Ty Lue negotiations.
In the report, Stephen A. Smith mentioned that there were people close to Jeanie Buss imploring her to trade LeBron James out-of-town. Naturally, based on the dysfunction surrounding the franchise, who really knows what the Lakers could do next.
Magic Johnson showed us that anything’s possible, right? To Smith’s credit, he did say he did not know the people who were in Jeanie Buss’ ear. Well, it seems that the question was answered recently.
This is the NBA news cycle world that we all live in. A lot of it is speculation because to be totally honest, no one can figure out what the Lakers are doing because the Lakers themselves may not know. All anyone can do is go off what they see and make an opinion. Sometimes we are wrong, sometimes we are right. It’s just the way it goes.
Any writer up to ESPN, FS1 or any other company tries to get it right. But if you really want to get an understanding of what we do, look no further than the movie Trading Places. Remember when the Dukes tried to tell Eddie Murphy his job?
Obviously, gold, wheat, pork bellies and orange juice is not the commodities we are trying to sell. Writers, podcasters and sports networks are selling information (yes and speculation) on what players are going to do in free agency, what teams are going to do next, which coaches are going to be fired next, etc.
Now that sports media 101 is out of the way, let’s take a look at every LeBron James trade scenario and the reader can be what Eddie Murphy called it.
Being a bookie!