LeBron James has typically not announced his free agency decision for more than a week after the July 1 start, but this year, the King took a new approach to his freedom of choice this summer.
LeBron didn’t even wait a full 24 hours before he made a very lowkey announcement in the form of a release tweeted by Klutch Sports’ Twitter account stating he was joining the Lakers on a 4-year, $154 million deal. There was no television special or lengthy first-person piece about coming home, just a brief paragraph explaining the facts of the matter. He won’t even be speaking publicly until his I Promise school opens in Akron on July 30.
Until then, we’ll be parsing through the fallout of LeBron moving West for the Lakers, the rest of the West, and for the first time in a long time, an Eastern Conference freed from the reign of James. We’re also learning a lot about how the LeBron recruitment happened, with very little leaking about actual contact between James and the Lakers prior to the announcement. However, as we learned on Sunday night from ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, Magic Johnson took matters into his own hands with an in-person visit to James’ L.A. home to close the deal.
How did the Lakers close this? Magic Johnson went to one of LeBron’s houses in LA late Saturday night and met with him for several hours.
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) July 2, 2018
The Lakers all planned to congregate at their facility last night for free agent calls. Magic was expected to be there. Instead he was at LeBron’s house— closing.
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) July 2, 2018
This was a very hush-hush operation. Lakers knew they needed to give Bron space to decide and announce it as he wanted. None of us reporters could even confirm they’d been in touch whereas calls with Cavs & Sixers leaked. Says something on the discipline for all involved
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) July 2, 2018
That report was confirmed not long after, with Sam Amick of USA Today and Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com noting there were only three men present in the meeting: James, Magic, and LeBron’s agent Rich Paul.
The meeting that sealed this deal included LeBron, his @KlutchSports agent, Rich Paul, & Magic Johnson at one of LeBron's LA homes last night for several hours, as @ramonashelburne noted. No one else but those three, and now he's about to don the purple and gold.
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) July 2, 2018
Confirming other reports out there, Magic Johnson, LeBron, and Rich Paul met last night in LA
— Joe Vardon (@joevardon) July 2, 2018
Some more context to the Magic-LeBron meeting Saturday night. LBJ was already strongly considering the Lakers but wanted to look Magic in the eye and see if they could find a trust before making a decision, per sources close to the situation.
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) July 2, 2018
That conversation clearly sold James on the vision the Lakers have, as he didn’t need to see another star sign alongside to go to L.A. — in fact, they found out the opposite as Paul George stayed in OKC. Instead, James heads to something of a blank canvas in Los Angeles where there are assuredly more moves to come, but they might take place over the next year heading into 2019 free agency rather than immediate, sweeping roster changes.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope re-signing a 1-year, $12 million deal shortly after James indicates that’s the plan, as he’ll come off the books just in time for the Lakers to make runs at top free agents.
