NBA Trade Rumors: Teams around the league are preparing for the possibility of a LeBron James trade request that could come this offseason.
With the NBA Trade Deadline less than a month away, all eyes are squarely on the Los Angeles Lakers. A team that many expect to make a move in an attempt to solidify their chance of making the playoffs are officially on the clock. Whether or not they actually make a move remains to be seen, but the next few weeks in Los Angeles should be increasingly interesting.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the Lakers’ current situation is that despite all their struggles this season, they are only two games out of the fifth seed in the conference. But what if the team doesn’t make a move and they fail to make the postseason? Or what if they do make a move and it’s not the one that helps the team make the step into the top 10 in the conference?
Well, what could await them during the offseason could be a disaster. According to a recent report, there are teams around the league that are anticipating a LeBron James trade demand this offseason.
If LeBron James were to demand a trade, it would not be a surprise
If this were to come to fruition, I don’t think this should be a surprising revelation by any means. LeBron doesn’t have many years remaining in the league and if he wants to finish his career on a winning team, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that it may have to be on a team other than the Lakers.
And that could become crystal clear after this year’s NBA Trade Deadline and the start of the offseason.
If the Lakers are unable to land a difference-maker at the trade deadline, there’s a strong chance that they will fall short of making the playoffs. That can’t sit well with LeBron. If that is the scenario that the Lakers enter the offseason in, there will be huge pressure on this team to either add a big-name player via trade or via free agency.
If the team fails on either front early on in the offseason, it wouldn’t be surprising to see LeBron make his way up to the front office and ask for a trade. It likely wouldn’t be as public as some of the other trade demands that we’ve seen in the league, but it isn’t that outrageous of a possibility when we really think about it.