It appears the LeBron James free agency drama will drag into next week as he made a couple of appearances at Fanatics Fest in New York and said nothing new. As LeBron again enjoys basking in the spotlight, here are the latest rumors on the biggest story in the NBA.
LeBron closer to a decision
On Thursday, LeBron said of his decision timeline, “I won’t hold you guys up too much longer.” The latest reporting from ESPN’s Dave McMenamin echoes that.
“Multiple sources familiar with his thinking told me in the last 24 hours that he is truly getting much closer to a decision.”
One of the hot rumors about LeBron during the Las Vegas Summer League was that he wanted to wait until after the World Cup to make the announcement, and whether that is his intent or not, that seems to be how things are playing out. ESPN’s Shams Charania said on Friday he thought an announcement could come next week. For now, we’re all feeling like Miami’s Pat Riley.
“Right now, I think we’re like everybody else, we’re just waiting to see what he does,” Riley said this week.
Miami is one of the “finalists” in the LeBron sweepstakes, and Giannis Antetokounmpo talked about the opportunity to play with him during an appearance on ESPN with Ohm Youngmisuk on Thursday.
“If there was a scenario for that to happen, I’d be very, very excited. He’s one of the best players to ever play this game, if not the best. [I’d] be able to learn so much from him. Obviously, brings such a championship experience to the team right from day one. I think he’s still one of the best players in the [game today], if not top 25 [at 41 years old]. You don’t see signs of him slowing down at all. You saw in the playoffs how effective and good he was for the Lakers.
“But I’m just like everybody else, we don’t have all the information. All the information is in LeBron James’ hand and his family’s hands, and he’s going to make the best decision for him. The history has shown that he’s always made good decisions for his career. And I hope if he thinks that the Miami Heat is a good decision for him. I would love for him to be here.”
A lot of pundits have Cleveland and Miami — two former LeBron teams — as the frontrunners for his services (NBC Sports continues to hear Cleveland, but nobody really knows).
Did LeBron drop 76ers hint?
For the second day in a row, LeBron appeared at Fanatics Fest, this time for a live recording of his show “The Shop.” Philadelphia fans are running with this quote as a hint that he is coming to the City of Brotherly Love. Quote via ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
“What’s most important is I want to compete, I want to compete at a high level. I want to join a franchise that kind of shares the same motto as myself, and that’s, like, practicing championship happens every day. But trusting the process more than anything.”
The process? Philly fans at the event cheered, but LeBron quickly shot that down with his next comment.
“I’ve been saying ‘to trust the process’ since I was drafted in like 2003. I don’t even know if Embiid was even born yet.”
At this point, we could parse LeBron’s comments over the past few months and have it point just about anywhere. Read into it if you want, all anybody else really wants is him just to make a decision.
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