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The Los Angeles Lakers continue to pursue Jonathan Kuminga, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.

The Lakers would seemingly have to engage in a sign-and-trade to acquire the forward, who would compete for an immediate starting role. The Cleveland Cavaliers are also interested in Kuminga.

He started the first five seasons of his career with the Golden State Warriors before he was traded to the Atlanta Hawks in February. Kuminga has the athleticism to be a solid transition scorer and an aggressive rim attacker.

"There's optimism within the Kuminga camp, even after last summer's seemingly interminable wait for a new deal with Golden State in restricted free agency, that there could be more movement and more earning potential as the offseason unfolds," Jake Fischer wrote on The Stein Line.

The Lakers could consider moving players like forwards Jarred Vanderbilt, Dalton Knecht, and Jake LaRavia as part of a sign-and-trade deal. Guard Jaden Hardy could also be made available.

Got a question for ya gang. Who exactly turns down the chance to play with a guy who has a living, breathing wing in the Hall of Fame while he’s still active in the league? Steph Curry already has a permanent wing in the Hall of Fame before his career is even over. And LeBron James reportedly looked at the chance to play beside that guy and still said, essentially, “Not like this.”

According to Anthony Slater’s reporting, a source close to the situation says LeBron would’ve genuinely loved to play with Steph. Just not here. Not in blue and gold, not under this logo, not as a Warrior. Somewhere else, with Steph as the visiting attraction instead of the household he’d be moving into.

Once I looked at it that way, the reporting started saying something different. People have been talking about this as though LeBron rejected Steph. My armchair psychology tells me he was rejecting the decade of history that would follow him into every locker room.

I want to sit in that for a second because it’s a wilder detail than it got credit for. This wasn’t a hypothetical some blogger cooked up. LeBron seriously floated the Warriors as a landing spot, according to Dan Devine’s reporting for Yahoo, but the appeal reportedly hinged on Golden State also bringing in a proven co-star, someone in the Anthony Davis mold, a running mate from a title he’d already won. So we’re talking not just Steph, more like Steph plus another proven championship star. If LeBron was going to cross one of the biggest psychological lines in NBA history, he apparently wanted more waiting on the other side.

There’s a version of LeBron joining the Warriors that ends with him getting cooked by his own legacy every single day. I’m imagining Every road arena chanting it back at him. Every TV graphic pulling up 2016 before tipoff. Every First Take segment turning it into a referendum instead of a highlight. Every GOAT debate suddenly turning into an argument about that decision. Jordan fans would run with it with a bloody vengeance. Warriors fans would barely be able to contain their smirks. Cavs fans, the ones who watched him deliver the thing he’s proudest of in his whole career, might run with it hardest of all. He’d never escape it, not for one single game of however many seasons he had left.

But strip the jokes away and there’s something real underneath it. This is still the rivalry that shaped both of their careers, and neither man has ever fully let it go. LeBron beat this era’s Warriors once, in 2016, and it’s one of the signature achievements of his entire career. He’s spent a decade watching Golden State build a competing claim to the defining dynasty of that era. You don’t walk into that house and put on that jersey unless you’re ready to spend the rest of your career explaining the choice.

And this is where it gets complicated, because we already witnessed a similar experiment. The legendary Kevin Durant joined the Warriors, won two rings, won two Finals MVPs, and people still bring up an asterisk every time his name comes up next to the greats. To me as a GSW scribe? I don’t care. But for how KD feels about himself? Maybe it’s too much noise to be around, IDK he’s a grown man minding his business. I would have guessed that two championships (shoulda been three) should have silenced everybody. But I guess instead it opened up a permanent debate about whether he needed Steph more than Steph needed him. LeBron had a front row seat for what happened to Durant’s reputation. He didn’t have to imagine the discourse; he got to watch it happen in real time.

Roster fit, cap sheets, and Jimmy Butler’s knee mattered. But I think the bigger obstacle was legacy. I think LeBron looked at the Durant blueprint and decided he’d rather build his own final chapter from scratch in Philadelphia than risk spending the rest of his career explaining championships instead of celebrating them.

Maybe that’s the strangest part of this whole saga. Steph Curry reached the point where the Hall of Fame started telling his story before the story was even over, and even that wasn’t enough to convince LeBron James to step into somebody else’s story. I’m betting that LeBron decided he’d rather write one more chapter of his own than spend the rest of his career talking about why he walked into Steph Curry’s.

LeBron James continues to break records in professional sports.

According to Fanatics, James’ Philadelphia 76ers jersey has surpassed Shohei Ohtani’s for the most jerseys sold by any player switching teams within the first 48 hours after the move was announced.

Ohtani’s previous record was set in 2023 when he revealed that he would be leaving the Angels and would be joining the Los Angeles Dodgers.

While the total sales numbers remain unknown, the data shared by Fanatics showed that more James’ 76ers merchandise was sold within the first 24 hours than it had when he announced he would be joining the Lakers in 2018.

The record-breaking sales by the legendary basketball figure continued as, 72 hours after his jersey was released to the public to order, Fanatics saw six different colorways with his No. 23 listed as out of stock on their website.

On Tuesday, Fanatics added more James jerseys to their inventory and currently has them listed for preorder.

When LeBron announced that he would be joining the 76ers on Friday, it sent the city of Philadelphia into a frenzy. He surprisingly chose them over the Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors, and Miami Heat.

Philadelphia native and comedian Kevin Hart, who is also a friend of James, was sent into hysteria when James announced that he would be joining Hart’s beloved 76ers.

WNBA star Caitlin Clark was in the middle of a press conference during the WNBA’s All-Star weekend in Chicago when she found out that James would be coming to the City of Brotherly Love. Like most basketball fans, she was caught by surprise.

With James finally putting an end to his ‘final decision,’ he will now be tasked with helping Philadelphia win its first NBA title since 1983, when they ironically swept the Los Angeles Lakers.

The NBA’s investigation into the Clippers-Kawhi Leonard deal could drag into 2027.

The league is looking into weather the Clippers circumvented the salary cap by compensating Leonard through a $28 million endorsement deal with Aspiration — which had a 23-year, $300 million deal with the franchise before it went bankrupt.

According to ESPN sources, the probe may continue into the new year if the two parties can’t agree on the findings or a settlement that involves punishing the team.

During the NBA Summer League NBPA executive director David Kelly said he didn’t think there was a “there, there” on if the Clippers, who remain adament they are innocent of circumvention, actually paid Leonard through an edorsement deal.

Kelly added that he hadn’t seen anything the New York law firm leading the NBA’s investigation, Wachtell Lipton, had uncovered that was worth a punishment.

Another source told ESPN to take claims from Kelly or any outsider knowledge of Wachtell Liptons findings with skepticism, adding that it’s unlikely the length of the investigation is an indicator of the outcome.

ESPN sources close to the NBPA said the union wouldn’t wait to bring the matter to arbitration if the NBA seeks penalties without proper evidence.

The two parties can avoid the arbitration process, however, if the NBA finds sufficient evidence in the investigation that the Clippers circumvented the cap with Leonard and all parties agree on both the findings and the provided discipline.

Potential punishments could include team fines up to $7.5 million, direct forfeiture of draft picks, the voiding of player contracts and a suspension of up to a year for any team personnel found to have engaged in such a violation, according to the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement.

Regardless of the outcome, Silver clearly wants this mess over with, telling reporters on July 14 that the investigation “needs to be wrapped up before the beginning of next season” and that it has taken “longer than I would have hoped.”

The Raptors likely agree, as their trade returning Leonard to Toronto has been placed on hold after they were informed by the league office that they could risk taking on any punishments handed to Leonard.

The deal would send Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, unprotected first-round draft picks in 2031 and 2033, a 2027 first-round pick swap and two second-round picks to the Clippers.

Frustration is brewing between Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors and a recent report has added more to the mix.

According to Logan Murdock of The Ringer, the Warriors had an opportunity to trade for Jaylen Brown before the NBA Trade Deadline this past February, but didn’t want to pull the trigger.

Murdock reported that the Warriors “Couldn’t build an organizational consensus that Brown would be the right player to carry the Warriors beyond the Curry era.”

Last season, Brown was tasked with being the main guy for the Boston Celtics as he was left without his former partner in crime, Jayson Tatum, who missed most of last season due to a torn Achilles injury he suffered in the 2025 NBA Playoffs.

As the lead man, Brown had a season he’d never forget. He finished in the top five of the NBA, averaging 28.7 points per game and was a driving force behind the the Celtics to finish in second place in the Eastern Conference with a 56-26 record.

Despite having a great year, Brown’s name was shopped across the NBA this summer as he headlined the trading block.

Eventually, Brown was traded by the Celtics to the Philadelphia 76ers.

The 76ers continued to load up their team by making another blockbuster move last Friday when they signed LeBron James to a two-year deal.

Since the offseason began, the Warriors have been interested in bringing in another star to play alongside Curry, Draymond Green, and Jimmy Butler.

Yet, they’ve missed out on James, Anthony Davis, who was viewed as a potential trade candidate in order to land LeBron, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

On Sunday, Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic shared his belief that Curry is “probably a little tired of star chasing,” which has started to cause a rift in the relationship between Curry and the Warriors.

Curry has yet to publicly request a trade out of Golden State, but Thompson said that he believes the repeated cycle of anticipation and disappointment could be taking a toll on Curry, who is now 38 years old and only has so much time left in his championship window.

Curry will now have to be the leader of an aging Warriors team that has been riddled by injuries. Butler will be coming back from a torn ACL injury, and Kristaps Porzingis appeared in only 32 games last season, as he was dealing with an illness.

Curry is also dealing with a knee injury himself that forced him to miss 39 games last year.

Despite any potential uncertainty between Curry and the Warriors, Murdock reported that the greatest player in franchise history has remained adamant about retiring as a member of the Warriors.

Every kid I know from my generation has asked their mom for McDonald’s and gotten the same answer. Not “no” but something worse: “We got McDonald’s at home.” And you already know what’s in that deep freezer. A brick of hamburger meat, shoved behind the frozen peas since March, frosted over like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Batman movie, absolutely daring you to be disappointed in it.

And the Warriors, depending on who you ask, are fitting the description of that perfectly unfazed mama.

The popular read on this Warriors offseason is that Draymond Green’s Warriors asked for a Happy Meal named LeBron James. But the King went to Philadelphia instead and the Dubs are standing in the kitchen with nothing but ice-crusted ground chuck and a bad excuse.

But here’s where the gamble of believing rookie Yaxel Lendeborg alone is enough gets real fascinating. Except what’s sitting in the freezer isn’t some forgotten pack of bargain-bin ground beef. It’s Jimmy Butler in cryostasis, and the Warriors have spent the last six months waiting for him to be healthy enough to actually cook with.

Golden State is, per the latest reporting, still the only team in the league that hasn’t added a new outside player this offseason. They re-signed Draymond Green on the exact contract he opted out of to chase James (or another splashy option) in the first place. So yeah, the easy piece to alliterate here is “Warriors weally whiffed.” Or perhaps even “I literally can’t believe Steph Curry doesn’t have Klay Thompson here alongside him at least for nolstalgic purposes”.

I’m not writing that piece folks, because I’ve got a hunch that whatever the Warriors see in the Curry-Butler pair has them curious (or brokenly resigned) to another go round with Dray, Brandin Podziemski, Gui Santos, a wounded Moses Moody, Will Richard and the fascinating super veteran big man tandem of Al Hoford and Kristaps Porzingis.

Think about what Butler represents when healthy, not that limping 2025 injury-report Jimmy we saw enthusiastically rooting from the sidelines. I’m conjuring up an image of the version that has consistently ratcheted up his play in April/May and treated postseason ball like a personal hit list. The Warriors have the guy whose entire basketball identity is built around what happens after the setback. He competes hurt, plays through pain that would sideline most stars, and has spent his career turning perceived slights into motivation that somehow lasts another year and a half.

The injury against Miami didn’t erase that identity but it absolutely interrupted it. Everything about Butler’s career says his response to an interruption is consistently louder than the interruption itself. The bet is Butler is still furious, still capable, and still exactly the kind of dark-horse variable that turns GSW into a feisty seven-seed into a team nobody wants to see in May.

To be clear, I don’t see these dudes coming anywhere close to a top seed next year, what with the way Father Time and the insanely vicious Western Conference is set up to keep them from ever winning a title again with Curry. But if they creep into the playoffs with a smidgen of health and confidence? After watching the recent champion New York Knicks play, let’s just say we all saw what a well timed postseason hot streak can do with a hot crowd can do.

Maybe the meat in the freezer isn’t actually some sad substitute for McDonalds. Maybe it’s the expensive cut that fell on the Safeway floor and the assistant manager gave it to somebody’s mama half price; she froze it six months ago because you could tell she was waiting for the right occasion. I’d be lying if I said believing this doesn’t require faith and amazing skills in NBA 2K to play it out on the virtual court. Fortunately, I have both, and I can see the possibilities. Butler will be the 37 at season’s start, the same age Jersey Joe Walcott was when he knocked out Ezzard Charles to become heavyweight champion back in 1951. That’s extremely relevant because Butler’s health represents what constitutes as the Warriors’ punchers chance when Stephen Curry takes his band of merry man on the path towards the preposterous 5th title run of the Steve Kerr era.

Now, if Butler’s knee says no in November the way it said no in January, this column potentially ages like the hamburger meat everyone’s already laughing about. But I’m pretty sure this team beats the Spurs in 5 games last year if fully healthy. Call me crazy.

Everyone keeps waiting for the Warriors to make their move, while the Warriors keep acting like they already made it. Maybe everyone’s just been staring at the wrong empty drive-thru window this whole time, like Dub Nation’s been s trying to get a Happy Meal. Mayhaps the only thing left to find out is whether what was already sitting in the freezer still tastes like a championship.

If you’re a Golden State Warriors fan who uses social media, then you’ve probably seen a fairly depressing graphic floating around the internet in one of its many iterations. The images and numbers vary from graphic to graphic, but the point remains the same: there have been countless moves made in the NBA this offseason. And the Warriors are the only team absent from that party.

Technically, the Dubs have made moves, but they’ve been to keep their own players. They re-signed Al Horford. They re-signed Kristaps Porziņģis. They’re planning to re-sign De’Anthony Melton. They re-signed Draymond Green after he opted out to afford them flexibility as they chased LeBron James.

But they haven’t added anyone new, save for in the draft. They put all their eggs in the James basket and came up short. They chose not to pursue costly, star-studded trades for players like Anthony Davis and Jaylen Brown. And while they’ll likely still add someone from outside the organization (though the options are dwindling), it appears they’re content to just run it back with the same squad.

That didn’t work out well last year. The Dubs went just 37-45 and were eliminated in the play-in tournament. Add in the fact that Jimmy Butler III and Moses Moody are likely to miss more time this year than last — and of course, the ever-increasing ages of Green, Horford, Porziņģis, and Steph Curry — and it’s reasonable to assume that Golden State will be even worse this year.

But there are always avenues for surprising success. Virtually no one pegged the Warriors to compete for a title in 2014-15 or 2021-22, and they won championships both years. That’s not me predicting that the Dubs will hoist a trophy next June — or even saying that’s a plausible outcome — but the Warriors can still take the world by surprise and have a shockingly good season. Or at least one that’s much better than last year.

How? Here are a few ways.

Yaxel Lendeborg shines

There’s always something fun about the mystery bag that is a draft pick; especially a lottery pick. You can make predictions and projections galore, but ultimately you have no clue what you’re going to get. The Warriors were excited when Curry fell to them with the seventh overall pick 17 years ago, but no one ever expected him to become the best player in franchise history, let alone a top-10 all-time talent. They thought they got Curry a running mate when they used the No. 11 pick on Klay Thompson, and instead got a Hall of Famer. They hoped to get a bench contributor when they took Green in the second round, and wound up with a one of the greatest defensive players in NBA history, who will likely spend the entirety of his Hall of Fame career in the Bay Area.

On the flip side, Golden State thought they had the second timeline locked up when they used back-to-back lottery picks on James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga … it’s only been a few years, but Wiseman is playing overseas and Kuminga remains a free agent with limited suitors.

All of that is to say that there’s a vast spectrum of potential outcomes for Yaxel Lendeborg, the No. 11 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. Lendeborg is, like all rookies, an unknown, but he’s also considered the most NBA-ready player in the rookie class, due to his age (he turns 24 before Opening Night) and experience (six total years of college ball). If he’s closer to great than to awful — and if he hits the ground running — the Warriors could have something special on their hands that will help them win games from Day 1.

A full season of KP is magical

Even though the Warriors haven’t added any free agents or players via trade, it’s still fair to think of Porziņģis as an acquisition. They only got him at the trade deadline last year, and he played just 15 games for the team. Plus, there’s only so much a midseason acquisition can help, as they’re learning the systems on the fly.

Even so, there was some magic in those moments, and the Warriors dramatically benefited from Porziņģis’ presence. Could that grow with a full training camp of learning Steve Kerr’s systems, and getting comfortable playing with Curry and Green on both ends of the court? It certainly can’t hurt. Porziņģis’ All-Star days are probably behind him, but there’s also a reason the Warriors handed him out a two-year, $40-million contract. They know that he can be a very, very good player, and they’re excited to get a full season of that.

They add another good player

Sounds simple enough, right? A lot harder in execution. That said, DeMar DeRozan remains unsigned, and while he’s a kind of funny fit in Golden State’s offensive system, they sure could use his doses of instant offense. The best way to get better is to add more talent. And whether it’s DDR, Bradley Beal, or anyone else, the Warriors at least have a chance to up their talent pool before the season begins. How much it will help remains to be seen. As we’ve all observed in recent years, some additions really hit with the Warriors, and some flop tremendously. But it’s hard to see how this team, which has struggled so much to score when Curry isn’t the player shooting the ball, wouldn’t benefit from the addition of a reliable 20-point scorer.

They upgrade their systems

Seeing what schemes the Warriors are running when the season begins is going to be fascinating. Apparently one of the mandates for Mike Dunleavy Jr. and Joe Lacob when bringing back Kerr was that he needed to find a way to adapt and evolve his systems a little bit more. They’ve made some personnel decisions as well, replacing Terry Stotts and Jerry Stackhouse with Frank Vogel.

Kerr remains one of the top coaches in the NBA, but he’s going to need to dig deep into his bag of tricks to turn the Warriors into a 50-win team. That’s going to include making some changes to how the offense and defense operate.

Someone takes a leap

The biggest way for a team to take a huge step forward is also the hardest thing to bank on: a player simply taking their game to the next level. With Moody injured and so many veterans around, that really means there are only three options: Brandin Podziemski, Gui Santos, and Will Richard. All three are quality role players, but all three have shown flashes of being so much more. Can one of them take the leap from 15-minute bench piece to borderline All-Star? Easier said than done … but then again, no one ever accused being a winning team of being easy!

Stay healthy

The Warriors have won four championships in recent memory, and they’ve fallen short even more times. And in victory and defeat, one lesson is always clear: it takes a lot of luck to win it all. That’s true even when your goals are less lofty than to win a title. Whatever the goal in the NBA, you need the cookie to crumble in your direction to meet it.

For the Warriors, that mostly means health. Porziņģis played just 32 games last year. Horford played 45. Curry played 43. Melton played 49. If the Warriors want to shock people this season, they need good health luck, particularly with Curry (and also with Butler when he returns from his torn ACL). You can’t bank on that … but you have to hope for it.