For the Lakers, that open-ended approach doesn’t work with the urgency they need to reconstruct the roster around Dončić and Reaves. For them, James is a massive cap number coming off the books, a pathway to fixing things. He’s no longer a part of the answer to their championship hopes.
It’s why, according to league sources granted anonymity to discuss front-office strategy, James’ name hadn’t been mentioned much in the Lakers’ team-building conversations with outside parties. James, it seemed, would need to be shoehorned into whatever else the Lakers decided to do.
New York Times
