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While many general managers around the league have salivated at the idea of getting LeBron James on their team through some way of happenstance, that ship has likely sailed, along with the notion that King James could be the solution for a title-starved franchise.
A Western Conference GM would be willing to trade for James in efforts to take down the reigning champions, but not to the point of trading his best player for him, as it would defeat the purpose. In layman's terms, James is no longer seen as good enough to get the job done by himself, having had a superstar partner to help him get each one of his three NBA championships.
“He's not good enough anymore to take four cadavers and get to the Finals,” the GM told Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report. “Not in the West.”
While his 2018-19 stats look up to par with what he did last season after single-handedly carrying the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals by playing all 82 games at age 33, his value has certainly dipped in the eyes of league executives.
“I still think you could get a decent package for him from a bad team,” one Western Conference assistant GM said. “A first-round pick and a good young player. But it would've been a lot more a year ago, for sure.”
The craze for LeBron James is surely not the same as before. His groin injury, which left him out for more than a month, revealed signs of humanity, which he had yet to show in his previous 15 years in the league.
Now that he has played nearly a full season in the West, GMs around the league aren't pining after The King any longer, knowing having him comes with plenty of wrinkles — and not the kind ones.
