LeBron James recently informed the Los Angeles Lakers that he wouldn’t be returning to play for them in the 2026-27 season. His tenure in Los Angeles comes to an end after a turbulent period, as James walks away with a championship and an NBA Cup.
There have been several teams linked to the four-time NBA champion, as he is yet to decide where he will take his talents for his 24th season in the league. The teams linked to him now are the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, Philadelphia 76ers, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Golden State Warriors.
Stephen Curry Talks About Potentially Uniting With LeBron James
Draymond Green declined his $27.7 million player option specifically to help give the Warriors more financial freedom to pursue James, and it is no secret that the Warriors are trying to lure James to the Bay. Curry recently spoke about potentially teaming up with James, who has been his rival for the last decade.
“I mean, up until probably two or three years ago, it was like a pipedream question or even thought, but that is a part of the allure,” Curry admitted to PFN during a press conference ahead of the American Century Championship.
“For him, going into his 23rd or 24th, I don’t know, season, and me going to my 18th, the battles that we had, that would be such a unique story in NBA history, sports history. But it’s a little premature right now to talk about it other than that.”
Curry and James defined a generation of basketball rivalry, meeting in four consecutive NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018 and delivering some of the most memorable postseason moments of the modern era.
The idea that they could now spend one final season pulling in the same direction is what makes this story so compelling to everyone watching, and clearly to Curry himself. They have competed against each other at the highest level, and now it would clearly be a dream come true for both of them to finally pair up.
What James and Curry did for Team USA at the 2024 Olympics has to be mentioned as well. Team USA beat France in the final, where Curry scored 24 points to help win the gold medal. James described that experience with Curry as “everything and more.”
Curry revealed his recruiting pitch to James: “The pitch is: Do you wanna play good basketball and be around people that know how to play the game? Hopefully raise our floor and our competitiveness this year. There’s good golf in the Bay. But we’re an organization that’s been there, he knows that. And that’s really self explanatory. It’s just a matter of where he sees himself fitting. And at the end of the day, that’s up to him.”
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported earlier this week that the Warriors are not viewed as a frontrunner unless they can also land Anthony Davis in a trade from the Washington Wizards, turning a Curry-James pairing into a four-man group that also includes Green and Davis.
That trade would require Jimmy Butler going to Washington; however, the Wizards are reportedly hesitant to trade Davis. It will be interesting to see whether the Warriors can pull that off or persuade James to come to the Bay even without Davis.
