LeBron James can’t become a free agent until 2018.

But that LeBron-to-Los Angeles rumor is already gaining steam, and even the LeBron-to-Miami rumor won’t die.

Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical Podcast with Woj:

Not only is there no guarantee he’s coming back, I’m not sure there’s an expectation he’s re-signing there. I think they feel, I think within Cleveland and around the league, they feel that he’s very much in play to leave again and likely head out West to one of the two L.A. teams. The Lakers could very well be a target. The possibility of Miami again, based on how they, what that team looks like and where they are. Would Dwyane Wade go back there? But I think the focus, a lot of LeBron’s – his business interests, his Hollywood aspirations, his media ventures are base out there. And I wrote this last year and said it and believed it: The minute he won that championship in Cleveland he was liberated to leave again. Now, if he had not won a title in Cleveland and then left again, I think there would be tremendous backlash again. But the fact that he came back and did what he set out to do, which was to bring a title to Cleveland.

I’m not sure what’s less likely – LeBron or Wade returning to the Heat. It seems those breakups exposed and created too much bad blood. Then again, the same could have been said about LeBron with the Cavaliers.

As for the Lakers or Clippers, as I laid out before, there are several reasons LeBron keeps getting tied to those teams: