Report: People close to Jeanie Buss ‘imploring her to trade LeBron James’

Things appear to be getting worse for the Los Angeles Lakers by the day, and there are at least some people close to the team’s ownership group who believe the LeBron James experiment should already be abandoned.

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith reported on Thursday that there are people close to Lakers owner Jeanie Buss who are advising her to trade LeBron.

I'm told people in Hollywood have told Jeanie Buss to trade @KingJames! pic.twitter.com/PzaOvC3uF0

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) May 9, 2019

“You’ve got folks close to Jeanie Buss imploring her to trade LeBron James,” Smith said. “He does not have a no-trade clause, and now you haven’t given him the coach that he wanted.”

Smith said there is uncertainty over how the coaching search will impact LeBron’s mindset. While he he was previously trying to convince Kawhi Leonard to sign with the Lakers rather than the Los Angeles Clippers, there’s now a chance James could be thinking about leaving LA himself when he can opt out of his contract after the 2020-21 season.

There were rumblings at the trade deadline in February that the Lakers may actually be considering trading James, but that was never anywhere close to happening. Plus, there were questions about whether or not they would even like the return they could get in a possible LeBron trade.

Obviously, the Lakers’ quickest path to winning is to build around LeBron. However, it will be interesting to see how their coaching search plays out with the way they have botched things to this point. Another disappointing season next year could spell the end of a very brief tenure for LeBron in LA.