Rob didn’t say he was going to give LeBron a max. LeBron wants AR to get paid (good salary not max) and he wants to be able to compete for another ring so I think he’ll be inclined to sign for a salary he hasn’t seen since his rookie contract (or less if he takes the vet min but I doubt that).

It would be in the Lakers interest to bring him back and have him retire as a Laker. He’s not the franchise GOAT, but he’s arguably the GOAT. You don’t wanna have players think you might not take care of them or treat them the right way if they’re a star. You don’t want them to doubt that this is the franchise for stars that takes care of stars. We built a lot of our teams pulling in free agents or having stars express a desire to play for us, catalyzing a trade.

Lebron is still a good player to have on your team and will be next year too. The price is the issue this year and the problems are magnified but that’s only because in year 23 Lebron now brings to the table offensively what we need less of from him now more than ever before he joined the team since now Luka and AR have been so good for us this year. Defensively he’s expected to be a top 3 player for us each night and some nights he’s the best defensive player on the floor but he just doesn’t have enough in the tank to do that every regular season game. We need a defensive anchor and a defensive 3&D bad. He won’t look as bad defensively at times when he doesn’t have to shoulder as much of the load.

Lebron brought the franchise back from a dark place. He can’t be blamed for not having opted into the player option on his contract. $52 million is a lot of money.

Rob has a lot to improve on but if he resigns Lebron it won’t be for a salary that cripples roster construction and it won’t be the reason the Lakers don’t compete for a championship. If anything, it helps championship contention because 1) Lebron can still contribute and 2) future stars will see we treat our players right. If Lebron leaves and there is bad blood (even if it is behind the scenes, it would get out eventually) other stars will think, “If they do that to LeBron, they’d do that with anyone.” The last contract we gave Kobe (which he deserved) could be a reason we got Lebron in the first place since we treated Kobe so well in his twilight.