Looking Back at the factors that lead LeBron to leave Cleveland for a second time and join the Los Angeles Lakers

Over the July long-weekend, there was some big news regarding a royal family. No, not the ones who live in Buckingham Palace, the James family, formerly residents of Cleveland, Ohio.

LeBron decided to head West to Los Angeles and join the Lakers. This year’s free-agency was different for James, with his decision coming much earlier than his two-previous free-agencies.

Since 2015, when James purchased a property in the L.A. neighbourhood Brentwood (yes, that IS where O.J. lived) sports media talking heads have been calling for his move to the Lakers.

It was widely reported throughout sports media that LeBron was planning a move to the Lakers for some-time but kept noting that his family; wife Savannah, sons LeBron “Bronny” Jr. and Bryce, and daughter Zhuri would be the ones who would be in control of where their father/husband would sign.

FAMILY

Aside from the obvious take, that living in Los Angeles throughout the winter is warmer than living in Cleveland, there are many more reasons for the James Gang to want to live there.

To start they will be living amongst families that have as much, or in some cases more money than they do. The family might be able to fit in amongst the vast number of celebrities and that might be preferable for a mother and father raising three children.

Speaking of those children, in case you have not heard, Bronny James can flat out-ball and is heading into his first year of high school. It would have been cool for hoop fans to see a second James wear the famous St. Vincent/St. Mary’s high school jersey, but that will not be the case.

Bronny James will be playing high school ball in the same area that has recently produced some of the NBA’s top talents, such as James Harden, Russel Westbrook, DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holliday and James’ former Cavalier teammate Kevin Love among a larger list of players.

On June 11th, Gary Payton had announced that Bronny was committing to play at Sierra Canyon to form somewhat of a High School super-team by joining fellow NBA-sons, Scottie Pippen Jr. and Kenyon Martin Jr.

However, an official for the high school said that nothing had been confirmed. Which ended up being false, because recently it was announced Bronny will be playing for Santa Monica Crossroads (where Shaq sent both of his sons Shareef and Shaqir who is still on the varsity team) this year.

The younger James son, Bryce, will also be able to improve on his basketball game too, but he’s still a few years away from having to pick a high school.

It was rumoured that LeBron’s wife Savannah had narrowed the families options to either Los Angeles or Cleveland, eliminating all other potential suitors such as Philadelphia, Houston and Boston (and the super surprising late push from the Denver Nuggets… yeah sorry Denver, there was no push).

They chose to leave Cleveland for the second time, but this time it was different, this time around their eldest son is entering high school and the second son will be in the final year of the contract.

LeBron said earlier this year being able to play in the NBA with Bronny would be his greatest accomplishment yet. The length of the contract is four years and that will be how many years Bronny plays high school basketball.

As of now, players must take one year in college or elsewhere to declare for the NBA draft, but there are talks that it could potentially change around 2021-2022. Just to be clear, Bronny will be graduating high school in 2022 and if he’s eligible to get drafted, the team that chooses him will most likely sign his dad as well as.

The father-son duo would most likely be the final chapter of arguably the greatest basketball player’s career.

LeBron’s Business Plans

Not only is LeBron one of the greatest basketball players of all-time, but he is also one of the greatest business minds in the history of athletes.

The King has grown into possibly the most recognizable athlete on the planet over the course of his fifteen-year NBA career. He has also been one of the most financially successful as well.

James is looking to join the billionaire athlete club and has big plans to do so. He has consistently made smart and successful business moves, and the move to the West Coast is no different from his other calculated business risks. Listed below are some of James’ successful business ventures that have been made public.

LeBron’s successful business ventures:

1. In 2011, James received a 2 percent stake in Liverpool FC for $6.5 million as part of a deal with marketing firm Fenway Sports Partners (owners John Henry and Tom Wener) who purchased the club in 2010 and own his marketing rights. The stake is now estimated to be worth $32 million.

2. In 2014, James made a profit of more than $30 million due to Apple buying the Beats brand which James had been an early investor in.

3. In 2015, LeBron created Uninterrupted, a media/video company for athlete-created content (raised $15 million from Warner Bros and Turner Sports)

4. James and childhood friend Maverick Carter created SpringHill Entertainment and signed a deal with Warner Bros in 2015.

5. In 2015, James signed a lifelong contract with NIKE that’s valued at $1 Billion.

6. Invested $1 million into a pizza start-up (Blaze Pizza), an investment valued at $25 million (July 2017)

7. In 2017, James, Maverick, Drake, and Future the Prince executively produced the Vince Carter documentary The Carter Effect for Netflix.

8. Endorsement deals with Kia, Coca-Cola (Sprite) and Upper Deck bring in more Benjamins for the King.

These business decisions and James’ choice to move to L.A. will benefit him long term and help set-up his post-basketball life.

James himself has said that he is determined to become an owner of an NBA team. Maybe even one day he can own the Cavaliers. But before he does that, he is looking at investing in Hollywood and the media production game.

It has been reported for some time now, that James (alongside other NBA stars) will take on the ‘Mon-Stars’ in the second installment of Space Jam. This could be one of James’ biggest productions as the original opened at #1 in 1996 and pulled in over $230 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing basketball movie of all-time.

The second iteration with LeBron and four other NBA stars could potentially break that record.

In October 2018, James and Carter’s executive produced a documentary on unpaid college athletes called Student-Athlete, which will be released on HBO. This may be a push for the NBA to let high schoolers back into the draft (maybe a certain Bronny James specifically), but either way it will be must-see T.V. when it’s released.

In Los Angeles, LeBron will get to learn more about post-basketball life from one of the most famous Laker’s and most recognizable basketball players in Ervin ‘Magic’ Johnson.

Magic has had an incredibly successful post-basketball life. Johnson himself is estimated to have a NET worth of around $500 million and his company is estimated at $1 billion.

LeBron will have a potential financial partner and mentor as he ventures into more diverse areas of business.

As for sports ownership, another one of James’ business goals, Magic has plenty of experience in that field too. He was given a piece of the Lakers ownership from Jerry Buss following the conclusion of his playing career, which he would later sell.

Magic was part of the group that bought the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, with Magic being the public face.

In 2014, Johnson and one of those partners purchased the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. With what was followed by Johnson being a part of the ownership group which brought the city of angels its second MLS franchise, the L.A. Football Club. If going to Miami was as James described his version of going to college, Los Angeles will be where James earns his Master’s Degree in business.

Politics

This might be one of the more over-looked topics with LeBron’s move out west, but there are serious considerations to be made when looking at this decision from the King’s point of view.

First, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s business Quicken Loans donated $750,000 to the Trump campaign and arranged to have the 2016 Republican National Convention at the home arena of the Cavaliers.

For those that do not remember, that is where the Republican Party crowned Donald Trump as their candidate to run for the Presidential election later that year.

LeBron has been very public with his opinions on how Donald Trump ran his campaign and how he has acted since becoming President.

Having the beginning of Trump’s run begin with a Republican celebration in the Cavaliers arena, LeBron’s area, would not sit well with the King. Not mention, James, and Gilbert did not have a good relationship prior to this, since the first-time LeBron left Cleveland for Miami.

Gilbert wrote the infamous “letter” that bashed LeBron and his decision. Coming back to Cleveland Gilbert had to publicly apologize to James.

Secondly, Ohio is often what is considered a ‘swing-state’ in elections, meaning historically the state will vote either way and the results of 2016 were that Ohio was staying Republican after swinging in 2012.

California, on the other hand, has voted Democrat for the last thirty years. LeBron James publicly supported and campaigned for Hilary Clinton and previously supported President Obama, both of whom are Democrats.

LeBron has been one of the most politically out-spoken athletes of his generation, and James may feel that his political outreach could have more effect in Los Angeles; whether it be movie stars, potential business partners, fellow athletes of whomever, LeBron will have more of an opportunity to politically network and potentially make a larger political impact than he already has.

Lastly, LeBron has continuously demonstrated that his role as an athlete is “bigger than basketball” and he will be sure to make his voice heard.

In 2017 James publicly criticized Trump for his words when discussing the racist events that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In February he responded to FOX News reporter Laura Ingraham’s statement that players will not just “shut up and dribble” and had an ESPN interview with Kevin Durant to discuss how they perceive President Trump.

This lead to a recently announced deal with Showtime for LeBron to create a docu-series called “Shut Up and Dribble” about how athletes should be more political given how big their platform is.

During the 2018 Finals, LeBron announced that the winner between the Cavaliers and Warriors would forgo their visit to the White House. And of course, Donald Trump responded in an immature way everyone expected by saying they were not invited anyway.

But for LeBron to speak on behalf of the team he was competing against in the Finals without the Warriors being upset shows two things: NBA players share similar political views and that LeBron’s voice carries the weight of being the NBA player’s political voice. LeBron will only increase his role as an activist for what he believes is right when his star status grows during his time as a Laker.

Los Angeles Lakers

Lakers fans and bandwagon LeBron fans celebrated as the King made his earliest Free Agency decision by announcing his intentions to sign with the Lakers on Sunday, July 1st, inking a four-year $154-million-dollar contract.

Vegas took note and increased the Lakers title odds from 20-1 to 7-2, only trailing the odds-on favourite Golden State Warriors (10:11). This is a team that finished 11th in the Western Conference last year and has not made the playoffs since being swept out in the first round in 2011 by the San Antonio Spurs.

The Laker’s have been one of the poorest run teams over those five years, greatly due to draft picks not working out, the inability to lure star players and two of the worst contracts given out (Luol Deng 4-years $72 million and Timofey Mozgov 4-years $64 million) in the summer of 2016.

But, all it takes is the King. LeBron is arguably the greatest basketball player to ever live and still, at 32, is firmly in his prime.

The Lakers followed the LeBron signing by eagerly signing veterans to play around the King. Which is common practice for LeBron James’ teams over his career, yet this instance made little sense.

The Lakers first signed Lance Stephenson (1-year, $4.4 million) the day after. A somewhat questionable move, bringing in a guy who has played for seven teams (two stints on the Pacers) in eight seasons.

Their next move was to acquire a player with Championship pedigree and Shaq-tin a fool Hall of Famer JaVale McGee (1-year veteran minimum). McGee played well in his minimal role for the Warriors, but adding him to a young Lakers team was again highly questionable. The one move that did somewhat make sense was the signing of Rajon Rondo (1-year $9 million), although this will probably cut into Lonzo Ball’s minutes, that is, if the sophomore guard is still on the Lakers and is not traded in a deal that lands the team another superstar.

Rondo is coming off a strong campaign, in which he was a vital piece in the Pelicans run to the second round of the Playoffs, but has also bounced around the league recently.

The teams latest signing was yet another veteran journeyman in Michael Beasley (1-year). The Lakers appear like they want to compete this year, but by signing all of these players to one-year contracts are leaving the door wide open to acquiring one or maybe two more All-Stars to pair with Lebron going forward.

Despite making some terrible moves in the past half-decade, the Lakers managed to stockpile some valuable young players.

The most touted of them all is 2016 2nd overall pick Brandon Ingram, a long, lanky 6’9 small forward who went from averaging nine points as a rookie to sixteen points as a sophomore, showing a large step in the right direction.

The following year the Lakers brought in three more young pieces who are still on the roster; point guard Lonzo Ball (2nd overall), small forward Kyle Kuzma and shooting guard Josh Hart. These three players have all shown promising signs with Ball and Kuzma having strong rookie campaigns and Hart lighting up his second go-around in summer league.

The Lakers also added Mo Wagner (25th overall), who may be forced to play significant minutes due to the Laker’s lack of frontcourt depth and sharpshooter Svi Mykhailiuk (42nd overall) in this year’s draft to add to their young nucleolus going forward. This will be a much different roster type to the veteran-filled teams that James has become accustomed to during his career.

Cleveland Cavaliers and their fans

When LeBron returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014, he made a promise. That promise was to bring Ohio its first NBA Championship ever. And in remarkable fashion, the King delivered on that promise defeating one of the greatest teams ever assembled in the 73-win Golden State Warriors.

LeBron had an incredible four years in his second tenure with Cleveland, capping it off with arguably his best season, in his fifteenth year! James played every single game for the Cavs this season.

From a 102-99 victory over the Boston Celtics on opening night to game four of the NBA finals, LeBron played in all of them.

Lebron put up ridiculous numbers in the regular season (27.5 PPG, 9.1 APG, 8.6 RPG) while playing 36.9 minutes-per-game. Then of course, like only LeBron can, he took that to a whole new level in the post-season leading the league in scoring (34 PPG, 9.0 APG, 9.1 RPG) while playing an astonishing 41.9 minutes per game. LeBron’s usage rate was 31.6% in the regular season and in the post-season, it climbed to 35.2.

LeBron carried this team like no star has carried a team before, so Cleveland fans HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO BE MAD.

Clearly, LeBron left it all out on the table in his fourth season on his second go-around with the Cavs, and it appears he had no intentions of doing that again.

The Cavs did not make their team better in the offseason. They clearly made it worse.

The Kyrie Irving trade was yet another robbery committed by Celtics’ GM Danny Ainge. The Cavs received an injured and disgruntled Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder who never got along with the locker room and the Brooklyn Nets 1st round draft pick that ended up being the 8th overall selection (drafted PG Collin Sexton). Kyrie Irving had two-years remaining on his contract and the Cavaliers management panicked when it was reported that he wanted out and no longer wanted to play second fiddle to LeBron James.

Trading one of the top-10 players in the league almost never helps your team improve, just saying.

Cavaliers GM Koby Altman tried to do his best to re-tool the roster at the NBA Trade Deadline, sending away DeWayne Wade, Iman Shumpert, Jae Crowder, Isaaih Thomas and Channing Frye while receiving George Hill, Rodney Hood, Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson in return.

These moves did nothing for the Cavs.

George Hill was invisible on offense AND missed the pivotal Game 1 free throw for the lead (which lead to J.R. Smith being the talk of the internet for weeks).

Rodney Hood was out of the rotation by the post-season and refused to enter a game versus the Raptors.

Larry Nance offered little outside of the odd dunk and rebounds. And Jordan Clarkson, oh man.

Anyone who watched the Cavaliers would either be laughing or yelling at the TV with how he played, jacking every shot he could.

These moves did not pan out and LeBron simply did not get enough from his supporting cast to compete with the stacked Warriors yet again.

After that heartbreaking Game 1 loss, every basketball fan could feel a short series coming. Cavs fans will be forever be left asking “What if George Hill made that free-throw?” or “What if J.R. Smith didn’t have the biggest brain fart in Finals history?”

Conclusion

LeBron James is one of the most recognizable athletes in the world and now, for the first time in his career, will be suiting up for arguably the most recognizable franchise in the NBA.

The King still wants to compete and win championships, but he is now putting a great deal of focus on his life after basketball.

LeBron’s celebrity status will grow as he further develops his business empire in Southern California and his political image will only get grow as he continues to be the player’s voice of the NBA.

Yes, there will be some fans mad (all other fourteen Western Conference fan-bases), but when looking at this decision through LeBron’s eyes, it makes perfect sense to why he decided to be a Laker. And plus, we are all winners with the number of sports-related content LeBron will be producing either for The Uninterrupted or other documentaries on HBO or Netflix.

This L.A. move has the sports world excited; from Bronny James playing in the area that produces the most talent, to his dad playing for the Lakers and battling the many loaded Western Conference teams, to lastly all the content James & Co. will be creating in the near future, in the form of shows, docs, movies and other digital content.

Time to get the popcorn ready, the show is about to begin.