The Los Angeles Lakers experienced a woeful season last time around, and it cost Frank Vogel his job as head coach, but fortunately, it’s not all doom and gloom for fans of the Crypto.com Arena side as star player LeBron James has agreed to a new two-year deal to stay at the faltering team.
Last season the Lakers were considered one of the favorites for the NBA title, but they finished the regular season with a shocking 33-49 record and didn’t even make the play-in tournament. This time around, perhaps you could go to this website and check the best sportsbooks in NY before backing LeBron and co. to go all the way.
Even though the Lakers were poor last season, LeBron James continued to deliver the goods and was in the running for the NBA MVP award despite getting nowhere near the play-offs, and that’s no mean feat.
The idea of losing the 37-year-old is not something they could even contemplate, and therefore, they were clearly happy to stump up the cash for a new deal to keep the four-time NBA champion.
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The $97.1 million deal covers a year deal and includes a player option for 2024-25 and amazingly means that LeBron James has career NBA earnings past the $500 million mark, and that’s quite an achievement.
The deal makes him the highest-paid player in NBA history, which is befitting of a man of LeBron’s stature; we are, after all, talking about a player who’s been picked for the NBA All-Star game for 18 years straight.
What is also astounding are the stats that James racked up during the Lakers’ capitulation. He managed 30.3 points per game, eight rebounds a game, and 6.1 assists. That’s the second-best record of his glittering career and came when all around him were losing their heads.
The Lakers brought in big names thanks to general manager Rob Pelinka, but Russell Westbrook turned out to be a disaster and should be on his way this off-season, and Anthony Davis was out injured for large portions of the season.
The Lakers now have Darvin Ham as head coach, and it will be interesting to see how the 49-year-old former Milwaukee Bucks assistant handles the pressure of his first senior coaching position.
Some have suggested that LeBron James signing a new deal was connected to the firing of Vogel, but the NBA legend has gone on record stating;
“I respect Frank as a coach and as a man. … I have nothing but respect for him,” after he was fired, and clearly, he will give his all under Ham or any other coach that is called in to get the Lakers back up in the playoffs.
Most pundits believe the reasons LeBron is sticking with the Lakers are pretty straightforward, with NBA insider Marc Stein, among others, commenting;
“Sources briefed on the matter stress that James is extremely happy in Los Angeles despite the Lakers’ back-to-back rocky seasons,”
“He and his family, by all accounts, have grown increasingly entrenched in Southern California since James signed with the Lakers in the summer of 2018.”
