The Los Angeles Lakers know they have to maximize LeBron James‘ championship window while they can. The team has been doing everything it can to help him win another NBA championship, but it looks like it could do even more.
The purple and gold have been aggressive in the first days of free agency, making interesting additions to a team that made the Conference Finals a few months ago. Once again, Rob Pelinka proved his doubters wrong.
Whether the team has enough to contend remains to be seen, but things are looking good on paper. However, the Lakers cannot take anything for granted, which is why they’re expected to tie Anthony Davis down to a contract extension soon.
Lakers could extend Anthony Davis’ deal before training camp
According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, the Los Angeles Lakers could reach an agreement with Anthony Davis before training camp. The big man has one more year under contract with a player option for a further season, but on August 4 he will be eligible to extend for three more years.
“Anthony Davis in Rob [Pelinka’s] estimation is someone that has represented the Lakers really well, citing how he played through his foot injury last year as a major reason why they won a championship in 2020 and he wants to continue to have Anthony Davis as a Laker… I am not too concerned about how this thing plays out, whether it’s the max amount of years or max amount of dollars are reached, that remains to be seen and that will be figured out between Rich Paul and Rob Pelinka and Jeanie Buss. But where things stand right now, I expect some sort of an agreement to be reached,” McMenamin said on The Lowe Post, via Lakers Nation.
“A lot of it is one, recognizing that Anthony Davis as a trade chip, there’s no way to replicate the value of what he brings to the court combined with LeBron James when he’s healthy, you just won’t. It’s absolutely impossible. You also recognize that LeBron turning 39 years old and entering Year 21 has a limited window, so then to try to coalesce with a new group if you were to find this beautiful trade for Anthony Davis, that’s follied, you could be wasting what’s left of LeBron and then beyond that, listen, we know the business of this league. If there’s no extension offered, what do you do? You apply pressure the other way and say I want out. So I’m fairly confident that Anthony Davis will come into training camp with an extended deal.”
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The maximum the Lakers can offer AD is a $167.6m, three-year extension, which would be added to his current deal. Needless to say, keeping him in the foreseeable might be crucial to help LeBron chase another ring.
