LeBron James has never been traded once in his long and illustrious NBA career. It’s not an outright surprise, given the level he has played in for all these years. That alone is enough to make such a decision extremely difficult.
However, it has recently come out that his current team, the Los Angeles Lakers, once considered it. There haven’t been any reports indicating that they are currently considering it, but there has been confirmation that they once did.
One Failed Trade Reportedly Triggered Talks To Ship LeBron James out of the Lakers
ESPN’s Baxter Holmes revealed that after the disaster that was the Russell Westbrook trade, Jeanie Buss considered trading James.
“In 2022, in the aftermath of the Westbrook trade, multiple people said Jeanie privately mused about not giving James a contract extension and, later that year, even about trading James, with the LA Clippers floated as a possibility (This was before James received a no-trade clause in July 2024 after signing a new two-year, $104 million contract.),” Holmes wrote.
Jerry Buss built an empire but feared infighting among his children would tear it apart. He was right. “I don’t think my dad would be happy with the way things just went down,” said one. “Not at all.” How family dysfunction & discord fueled the $10B sale: https://t.co/u9gnda03b3
— Baxter Holmes (@Baxter) January 21, 2026
Reading the tea leaves from this, it sounds like trading for Westbrook, which was inarguably a terrible, franchise-dooming decision, was James’ idea. At least, it sounds like that’s what Buss thought of the debacle. He didn’t force the Lakers to make the move, but it sounds like something Buss and the team did to appease him.
They did that because it’s LeBron James. He is one of the very rare players who, by himself, can turn around the fortunes of a franchise. So, if he thinks someone like Russell Westbrook could take the team to the next level, it’s hard to go against that because of the basketball figure he is.
Sadly, while Westbrook blew up in the Lakers’ faces, pretty much everyone saw the explosion coming, though they, too, thought that, because of James’ history, they’d give him the benefit of the doubt: if he thought Westbrook was going to help, maybe he wasn’t wrong.
Regardless, it was a significant setback that the team still hasn’t fully recovered from all these years later. It basically ruined the LeBron James era in LA. If James leaves this offseason, and there’s a non-zero chance that he might by virtue of being an unrestricted free agent, Buss may wind up regretting not trading him when the opportunity was there.
