PublishedJune 29, 2025 5:07 PM EDT•UpdatedJune 29, 2025 5:07 PM EDT

Free agency in the NBA is fast approaching, meaning players can make decisions about their future playing destinations starting June 30.

LeBron James, being the team-first, winning culture guy that he is, surely must have taken a pay cut to make sure the Los Angeles Lakers had all the resources they needed to build a championship contender around him, right?

Pffffft! Of course not!

Looks like James is going all in on making as much money as humanly possible in his 23rd season in the NBA, and who could blame him?

The problem I have with James - both regarding his contract situation and just in general - is what he said after seemingly re-upping with the Lakers.

So LeBron opts into his $52 million player option and then immediately starts bashing his current team?

Talk about a real team player!

The King is up to his usual tricks this offseason, hamstringing the organization he is playing for and then criticizing it for the roster.

But the language being used by his agent, Rich Paul, in the statement above suggests something a little different.

Could "Le-GM" be trying to force his way out of Tinseltown?

Let's ignore the fact that James probably put this roster together himself, and if you believe he had no idea the Lakers were going to trade Anthony Davis for Luka Dončić, I have some beachfront property in Wyoming to sell you.

Was it not this very same LeBron James who was just whining on his podcast about ring culture - the very culture he helped create when he tucked tail and ran to play with his buddies in Miami - just days earlier?

Now he wants to go to a team where he's a title favorite?

"He values a very realistic chance of winning it all." Oh, so when forcing a 10-time All-Star out of town for a top-five player on the planet and then bitching and moaning that you need a center doesn't work, your next trick up your sleeve is, "trade me, boss?"

This is why LeBron James and the NBA at large don't do it for me anymore.

I refuse to watch divas making hundreds of millions of dollars completely meltdown when everything isn't going their way.

Wake me up when the college football and hockey seasons start.