The Los Angeles Lakers have navigated through two significant obstacles this offseason, hiring JJ Redick to be their new head coach and selecting Dalton Knecht and Bronny James in the 2024 NBA Draft. It will be a while before one can determine if they passed these barriers unscathed, but the organization's vision appears to be taking shape.

The next and biggest task that owner Jeanie Buss and general manager Rob Pelinka will have to successfully complete is re-signing LeBron James in free agency. Although there are those who are vehemently trying to expunge the nepotism narrative surrounding the No. 55 overall pick, selecting Bronny James could make his father more amenable during negotiations.

The four-time NBA Finals MVP is essentially guaranteed to return to LA at this point, but the Lakers will still have to upgrade the roster if they want to contend in the Western Conference next season. Thus, having some extra spending money coming out of the expected James deal would be tremendously beneficial for management.

He has taken less green to accommodate his teams in the past, and since the front office just provided him with the priceless opportunity to play the game he loves with one of the people he loves most in the world, perhaps LeBron James is feeling especially generous.

How LeBron James can help out the Lakers this offseason

On his podcast, ESPN senior NBA writer Brian Windhorst presented the possibility of the 39-year-old taking a pay cut in order to free up the necessary cap space for the Lakers to add a potentially impactful player in the offseason.

“This is not my idea, I didn’t come up with this,” he said on “Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective.” “If LeBron is willing to take less money than the max, they could open up the possibility of using the full mid-level {salary exception}. Now it’d have to be….it’s not going to be a million dollars, quite a few…I think he would take around 38 or 39 instead of {$50 million}.”

While it obviously can be difficult to leave an annual amount of $10-12 million on the table, a billionaire like James is bound to be more open to making such a sacrifice. Now that he is sharing a locker room with son Bronny James, the all-time great can devote his entire focus to winning another championship with the Lakers. He knows that some form of reinforcements are probably needed to give this squad a fighting chance.

Could James' relationship with the franchise, which should theoretically be stronger than ever, result in him forgoing a max contract for the betterment of the team? ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon expressed their doubts. Brian Windhorst is not ready to dismiss the scenario, though.

The Lakers could try to capitalize on a happy LeBron

“Well, listen it may be a non starter, but ill tell you it’d be a non starter if they didn’t draft Bronny okay,” Windhorst said. He also cited Dallas Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki as an example of an aging star signing a team-friendly contract to prove that there is some validity to this seemingly unrealistic suggestion.

LeBron James has aged like no other NBA player, however, and therefore should not be compared to anyone else. He remains an All-NBA caliber-talent, so there is less incentive for him to agree to a pay cut. But the ultimate reason of earning a fifth ring might be quite compelling.

The fact that Windhorst is insisting that this is not his personal idea indicates there is at least one person, or maybe multiple people in the industry who can envision this compromise coming to pass. Regardless of what James chooses to do in free agency, the Lakers must find a way to make some more noise in the offseason.