Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving has checked another piece of business off the to-do list in signing left winger Matthew Knies to a contract extension.
Knies inked a six-year contract with the Maple Leafs on Sunday, at an average annual value of $7.75 million. He will be under contract through the 2030-31 campaign. He will be 28 years old, in the prime of his career, by the time he needs a new deal.
The 22-year-old had a standout season in the final year of his entry-level contract. He scored a career-high 29 goals and 29 assists for 58 points. With that, he recorded 15 power-play points and six game-winning goals, while averaging 18:31 of ice time per game.
Knies ended the regular-season fourth in goals and fifth in points among his teammates. Furthermore, he was tied with William Eklund as the third-highest point-scorer among players who were drafted in 2021, behind the Dallas Stars’ Wyatt Johnston (71) and Utah Mammoth’s Dylan Guenther (60).
BREAKING: Matthew Knies has agreed to a six-year extension with the Maple Leafs worth $7.75M per year to stay in Toronto, per @reporterchris. pic.twitter.com/1zVHtI9Mts
Over the past season, Knies has emerged as one of the best true young power forwards in the NHL. He finished third on the team in hits with 182, behind Simon Benoit (204) and Steven Lorentz (199).
In the playoffs, Knies’ production didn’t slow down or take a hit. The Phoenix, Ariz. native scored five goals and seven points in 13 post-season appearances. In those playoffs, his ice time average jumped up from the regular season by over a minute to 19:48 per game.
After this signing, the Maple Leafs have $13.57 million in salary cap space, per PuckPedia, so Treliving still has some room to shop on the opening day of free agency on Tuesday.
The Leafs are coming off the contract extension of John Tavares from Friday, and before their new contracts, Knies and Tavares had a combined salary of $11.925-million against the cap. Now, the two forwards add up to $12.138-million for the upcoming 2025-26 season.
The Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani holds a bat and smiles while looking across the field during a game against the Nationals at Dodger Stadium on June 22. (Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)
All-Star voting resumes Monday at 9 a.m. PDT for 48 hours with the Dodgers entertaining the possibility of fielding an unprecedented eight position players.
The top two vote-getters at each position through Phase 1 of voting are finalists and moved on to Phase 2, which ends Wednesday at 9 a.m. PDT. The defending World Series champion Dodgers boast a finalist at each infield position and two among six outfielders.
Even though only three Dodgers led National League Phase 1 voting at their position, all eight have an equal chance of starting because votes don't carry over to Phase 2. The player at each position to accumulate the most votes in the two-day window will start the July 15 game at Truist Park in Atlanta.
"Very proud. It's great," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "Obviously we're playing well. As it stands now, we're the best team in the National League, so we should have the most All-Star voting for the team."
Shohei Ohtani locked in an automatic spot as starting designated hitter because he led all National League players with 3,967,668 votes in Phase 1. Catcher Will Smith and first baseman Freddie Freeman are the other Dodgers to lead voting, while second baseman Tommy Edman, shortstop Mookie Betts and third baseman Max Muncy finished second. Among outfielders, Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages finished second and fifth, respectively.
In American League voting, the Angels' Mike Trout is one of four finalists to secure one of two openings in the outfield. Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees already earned a starting spot by leading all players with 4,012,983 votes in Phase 1.
Trout, who has 13 home runs in 56 games, is competing against Riley Green and Javier Báez of the Detroit Tigers and Steven Kwan of the Cleveland Guardians.
Voting can be done online at MLB.com/vote, all 30 team websites, the MLB app and the MLB ballpark app. The winners will be announced on ESPN at 1 p.m.
The most position players voted to start an All-Star Game from a single team is five — accomplished by the 1976 Cincinnati Reds ,the 1956 and 1957 Cincinnati Redlegs and the 1939 New York Yankees.
"I hope we get five, six, seven Dodgers," Roberts said. "That'd be great."
National League finalists Catcher: Will Smith (Dodgers), Carson Kelly (Cubs) First base: Freddie Freeman (Dodgers), Pete Alonso (Mets) Second base: Ketel Marte (Diamondbacks), Tommy Edman (Dodgers) Shortstop: Francisco Lindor (Mets), Mookie Betts (Dodgers) Third base: Manny Machado (Padres), Max Muncy (Dodgers) Outfield: Pete Crow-Armstrong (Cubs), Teoscar Hernández (Dodgers), Ronald Acuña Jr. (Braves), Kyle Tucker (Cubs), Andy Pages (Dodgers), Juan Soto (Mets)
American League finalists Catcher: Cal Raleigh (Mariners), Alejandro Kirk (Blue Jays) First base: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Blue Jays), Paul Goldschmidt (Yankees) Second base: Gleyber Torres (Tigers), Jackson Holliday (Orioles) Shortstop: Jacob Wilson (Athletics), Bobby Witt Jr., (Royals) Third base: José Ramírez (Guardians), Alex Bregman (Red Sox) Outfield: Riley Greene (Tigers), Javier Báez (Tigers), Mike Trout (Angels), Steven Kwan (Guardians)
Dodgers pitcher Justin Wrobleski throws during the fifth inning of a win over the Kansas City Royals Sunday in Kansas City, Mo. (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)
In truth, there was very little notable action on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.
In the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Kansas City Royals — a victory that clinched the weekend series and gave the club a 5-1 record on this past week’s road trip — Wrobleski continued to quietly impress as a depth pitching option for the Dodgers, pitching six scoreless innings that were short on flash but long on substance; serving as the latest productive outing in his suddenly auspicious sophomore season.
“Justin's confidence is at an all-time high,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And he's a confident young man already.”
Entering the game behind opener Lou Trivino at the start of the second, Wrobleski made easy work of a struggling Kansas City offense, giving up just three hits and one walk in a six-strikeout showing as the Dodgers (53-32) pulled away at the plate.
Kiké Hernández hit a two-run homer in the second. Will Smith added a solo shot in the sixth. And by the time the team tacked on two more runs in the seventh, such extra insurance was already looking unneeded.
Instead, Wrobleski further raised his stock in what has been a surprise midseason rejuvenation, turning in his best career performance at the big-league level.
Over his 83-pitch outing, the Royals (39-45) only once managed to even put a runner in scoring position. They squandered all three leadoff hitters who reached base. And during their best opportunity to rally in the third, Wrobleski mowed through the heart of their order, sandwiching one strikeout of Jonathan India and fielder’s choice grounder from Vinnie Pasquantino with a statement-sending punchout of Royals star Bobby Witt Jr., getting him to whiff on a 96-mph fastball and putaway two-strike slider.
“Bobby Witt is one of the best hitters in the game,” Roberts said. “And for him to beat him with the fastball, he wasn't doing that last year.”
Indeed, few saw Wrobleski’s surge coming this season.
Wrobleski was optioned back to the minor leagues after that, and made only one MLB appearance over the next two months: a four-inning outing in mop-up relief duty during a May 15 blowout of the Athletics.
At the start of June, however, he was called back up to make a spot start in St. Louis, turning in a decent six-inning, four-run effort. And since then, he has continued to get better each time out. In his last 20 innings — all of them coming in bulk relief — he has conceded just four earned runs while striking out 21 batters. His overall ERA in five June appearances was 2.73.
“Having that bad one in Washington, honestly, set me back in a good way,” Wrobleski said. “I had to go back down, make a few adjustments.”
And now, he joked, that D.C. start “feels like it was three years ago.”
The biggest difference with Wrobleski of late has been his fastball. In that April start against the Nationals, it averaged just 93 mph. In every outing since, it has sat around 96-97 mph, and topped out above 99 mph.
Wrobleski credited the improvement with some small mechanical tweaks, having adopted a wider base in his pre-pitch stance and incorporated a rocking motion in his delivery to help him direct his momentum toward the plate.
But also, he said he has simply found a way to throw with maximum effort more consistently — coupling it with an increased reliance on his sinker to attack the zone and induce quick outs.
“I think it just goes back to me being me,” said Wrobleski, an 11th round pick out of Oklahoma State in 2021. "That’s how I got here was doing that. I got away from it a little bit, tried to quote-unquote ‘throw strikes,’ and when you do that, it leads to results that are not desirable. But at the end of the day, [I just want to] throw my best stuff for as long as I can until they take the ball. I think that’s been a major key.”
As a result, Wrobleski’s name is quickly rising among the hierarchy of young Dodgers pitching.
The fact that he was even on this road trip was a sign of the organization’s growing confidence in his abilities.
During the team’s last homestand, fellow young talent Emmet Sheehan returned from Tommy John surgery with four sharp innings, and seemed primed to occupy an open spot in the Dodgers’ rotation moving forward. However, with Sheehan not yet fully built up, the club elected to option him back to triple A and have Wrobleski pitch twice in a six-day span this week, with a five-inning, two-run outing in Colorado on Tuesday preceding Sunday’s gem in Kansas City.
Sheehan should be back in the majors soon, having pitched six perfect innings with 13 strikeouts in a start with Oklahoma City on Wednesday (manager Dave Roberts said Sheehan’s next outing will also be with OKC, though he could still rejoin the Dodgers before the end of their upcoming homestand).
But now, he’s not the only former prospect showing flashes of being an impact option in the majors.
“He’s changed a lot,” Roberts said of the team’s evaluation of Wrobleski. “We’ve always valued him and thought a lot of him as far as the talent. But right now, he’s getting major league hitters out … And in the spirit of getting opportunities while earning them, he’s doing that.”
The New York Rangers have one clear option regarding how to handle K’Andre Miller’s future.
Whether Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury likes it or not, he has to keep Miller, at least for now.
Since the 2024-25 season ended, Miller has been the subject of trade rumors as the team has been attempting to shop him.
Now though, the draft has come and gone and Miller remains a Ranger and that’s no coincidence.
Answers about what the future holds for Miller have not been answered and chatter about the situation has been quiet over the past few days. There are two reasons for that.
First off, the Rangers don’t like what they’ve been offered so far for Miller, which has held up a potential trade.
On the other side of things, the Rangers don’t want to give Miller a long-term contract extension, slowing down negotiations between the two sides.
The Rangers and Miller are essentially at a stalemate right now. Both signing a long-term contract extension and finding a feasible trade that the Rangers could be content with continue to seem more and more difficult.
It’s critical the Rangers don’t panic though and trade Miller for an underwhelming return because the 25-year-old defenseman still has a ton of potential and it would be foolish to give up on him for nothing.
At this point, the wisest move for the Rangers would be to give Miller a one-year bridge contract and let the 2025-26 season play out with him on the roster and determine later if he’s worthy of a long-term extension.
So for now, the Rangers should keep Miller and avoid a potential disaster where they don’t maximize his full value.
Francisco Alvarez appears to be finding his groove down in Triple-A.
The Mets' young backstop lifted a 434-foot three-run shot on Saturday night, and he followed that up with another strong showing on Sunday.
After failing to reach in each of his first two plate appearances, Alvarez stepped to the plate with Syracuse trailing by a run in the fifth, and he ripped a double over center fielder Robert Hassell III’s head.
It left the bat at an impressive 109.6 mph and one-hopped the fence.
He would score the game-tying run just three pitches later, as the red hot Pablo Reyes tripled down the left-field line as part of a three-hot effort.
Alvarez was called out on strikes with a man in scoring position in the seventh, but he was able to do more damage two innings later, as he crushed a go-ahead two-run homer to deep left-center.
This one left the bat at 107.2 mph and traveled 412 feet.
The 23-year-old has now gone deep on back-to-back days after going hitless in each of his first three games following his demotion from the big-league level.
Luisangel Acuña reached base for the sixth time in seven games since he was sent back down -- lining a one out single in the top of the seventh, and he picked up his third stolen base of the season at the level.
On the pitching side of things Syracuse’s bullpen was pretty impressive -- youngster Dom Hamel tossed two scoreless innings, Rico Garcia put up a zero of his own, Austin Warren struck out the side in the eighth, and Justin Garza locked down the save.
The Detroit Red Wings made a big dent in the goaltender market Saturday with the announcement they’d acquired veteran netminder John Gibson from the Anaheim Ducks. Gibson was probably on the radar of at least a few teams, including the Edmonton Oilers. And now that Gibson is off the market, what will the Oilers do if they decide, as many think they have to, that their goalie tandem of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard needs to change?
To be sure, the goaltender market in this off-season is about as thin as it gets. As we covered in this THN.com article about available UFA goalies, only veterans Jake Allen of the New Jersey Devils, Ilya Samsonov of the Vegas Golden Knights and Alex Lyon of the Red Wings stand out as goaltenders who can provide at least an average performance. And even then, you can poke holes in the games of all three of those goalies.
So, does Edmonton want to probably overpay in a seller’s free-agent market for a goalie? Clearly, they’re not going to get a Vezina Trophy candidate via free agency. And other teams will be bidding on Allen, Samsonov and Lyon, so the cost could put all of them out of the Oilers’ reach. And that brings us to the next possibility for Edmonton: a trade for a goalie of consequence.
That said, no team will be charitable in providing Edmonton with help in net. Oilers GM Stan Bowman would easily be able to take a chance on a reclamation project like Pittsburgh Penguins veteran Tristan Jarry, but Oilers fans would probably run Bowman out of town – firstly, for making a trade for a player any team in the league could’ve had when the Penguins waived Jarry last season before sending him to the American league, and secondly, for acquiring a goalie whose save percentage has dropped every year from 2021-22 through 2024-25, from .919 in 2021-22 to .909 in 2022-23 to .903 in 2023-24 to .893 in 2024-25.
Jarry has a salary cap hit of $5.375 million for the next three years, but even if the Oilers are patient and Pittsburgh buys out Jarry’s contract this summer, Edmonton would still be looking at signing a goalie who couldn’t stop enough pucks to keep himself at the NHL level last season.
Elsewhere, the Columbus Blue Jackets also have a reclamation project in veteran Elvis Merzlikins, but like Jarry, Merzlikins’ performance has been well below average, as he put up a SP of .892 last season, and he hasn’t had a SP above .897 in the past three years. Merzlikins has a cap hit of $5.4 million for the next two years, and while Columbus might be amenable to retaining some of Merzlikins’ cap hit, he’s still a goalie who could continue to be a major disappointment.
Otherwise, teams are almost assuredly going to be hanging on to the goalies they have, and that will leave Edmonton in a sticky situation. Is running it back with Skinner and Pickard truly an option for this organization?
The Oilers fell to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup final for the second-straight year, not primarily because of their goaltending, but the undeniable fact is that Skinner had a .889 SP in the playoffs, and in the Cup final, Skinner had an SP better than .881 just once in five appearances. Meanwhile, Pickard wasn’t better, with a .886 SP in the post-season, and a SP of .875 or worse in two of three appearances he made in the Cup final.
Thus, you can see why Bowman will have his work cut out for him when trying to find a different look between the pipes. And remember, when Bowman won three straight Cups with the Chicago Blackhawks, his primary goalies were Corey Crawford, Antti Niemi and Scott Darling – hardly a row of future Hockey Hall of Famers. That experience might mean Bowman settles on a less-proven netminder while he tries to improve Edmonton’s defense in front of a B-grade goalie. And that philosophy could sink the Oilers’ Cup aspirations yet again.
In any case, Edmonton almost assuredly will be making a change in net. Going with the status quo could prove to be disastrous, and if the Oilers once again fail to win a Cup next season in part due to their choice to keep the same netminding, Edmonton fans will be rightfully livid.
The Oilers have tried repeatedly to win it all with, at best, average goaltending, and it hasn’t worked. Bowman has to do his utmost to come up with a solution for his goalie tandem, and he needs to do it before other teams step in and scoop up any and every goalie who might be available via trade.
The Panthers have won back-to-back Cups partly because they had a Grade-A goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky. Edmonton has no comparable netminder. And Bowman’s most important job this summer will be to shake the trees of the rest of the NHL and try to come away with a goalie who can keep the Oilers in crucial games long enough for their high-octane offense to carry the load and deliver them to championship glory.
Because if he fails to do so, Edmonton could yet again be on the losing side of the ledger in the next post-season. And no one should feign surprise if that’s how things unfold.
Following a tough 13-game stretch that saw the Mets get swept at home by the Tampa Bay Rays and then win just three out of 10 straight games against NL East opponents, the team came into Pittsburgh this weekend with a chance to right the ship against one of the worst teams, record-wise, in the National League.
But hopes of turning things around quickly dissipated, and what could have been a bounce-back weekend became another nightmarish series for the Mets, as the Pirates swept the three-game set in dominant fashion, outscoring New York 30-4.
“It’s frustrating, and we are all frustrated, obviously. Not gonna lie, we’re better than that, and they know that,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after Sunday’s 12-1 defeat. “It’s a tough stretch, but we’ve got to be better. It starts with me. We believe in those guys. Off day tomorrow, and then we’ve got another good team coming into town in the Brewers. They’re playing well, so we’ve got to bring our best game.
“[We’ll] continue to support the guys, but obviously we’re not happy about it.”
The Mets found themselves in an early hole on Sunday that proved to be too much for the club to dig out of, as starter Frankie Montas allowed five two-out runs in the first inning, including back-to-back home runs from Oneil Cruz and Tommy Pham.
Montas stuck around for 4.0 innings, allowing six earned runs on seven hits while striking out five and walking one, but his poor first inning was too much for the Mets to overcome.
“To be honest, just in that first inning I felt like I was missing my spots a little bit,” Montas said. “I thought I threw some pretty good pitches after that.
“I feel like I wasn’t really commanding my fastball the way I wanted to, and that’s the thing. If you’re not hitting your spots, they’re going to hit you pretty good.”
The Mets, who are now just 19-25 on the road this season and currently sit 1.5 games behind Philadelphia in the NL East standings, have an off day on Monday before welcoming the Milwaukee Brewers (winners of eight of their last 10) to Citi Field, starting on Tuesday night.
The Mets know they were outplayed by the Pirates in every facet during this weekend’s set, but Francisco Lindor explained that the hope is the off day allows them to reset before facing a hot Brewers club.
"It's a tough stretch for sure. Hopefully getting the day off, the mental day off, and getting away from the field, we can come back and get back on the horse,” Lindor said.
“There’s a big league team on the other side,” he added later about the three-game sweep. “We’ve got to tip our cap to them, they outplayed us. They pitched better than us, they hit better than us, they got on base better than us, they played better defense. It’s a big league team on the other side. With that being said, there’s a sense of, yeah, we’re frustrated that we’re not winning, but at the end of the day it’s just part of the adversity that we’re dealing with right now.
“We’ve got to stick together and play as hard as we can to come out of it. Hopefully once we’re out of it, we don’t go back to something like this.”
The Yankees closed their weekend set with a 12-5 win over the Athletics on Sunday afternoon.
Here are some takeaways...
- Jazz Chisholm Jr. got the scoring started with a solo shot in the bottom of the second off Luis Severino. Jazz was smooth again just one inning later, as he ripped a three-run triple into the right-center gap, blowing the game wide open at 4-0.
Chisholm was on base three times on the day with the pair of extra-base knocks and a walk.
- The Yanks would add on again against their former teammate in the bottom of the fourth, as Aaron Judge crushed a two-run shot deep into left field seats. Judge struck again later in the contest, launching another two-run shot in the seventh, this time off of right-hander Tyler Ferguson.
Judge now has five straight seasons with 30+ homers and he's the second player to reach that mark this year.
- Cody Bellinger got in on the fun as well, cracking a three-run shot to right-center in the fifth as part of a three-hit afternoon. The sweet-swinging lefty now has knocks in nine of his last 10 games and he has two homers and six RBI over that span. - It was a rough go for Severino against his former team, as he allowed six earned runs (seven total) on five hits, three strikeouts and three walks over just 3.2 innings of work. The veteran right-hander now has a 5.18 ERA during his first season with the A's.
- Marcus Stroman was hit by a line drive off Max Muncy’s bat in the top of the second, but he was able to stay in the game after talking to the training staff. Making his first start since April 11 (knee inflammation), the right-hander held the A's offense to just one run on three hits and two walks in five innings.
- JT Brubaker struggled in just his fourth outing of the season, as he was unable to work through the sixth inning and allowed the A's to creep their way back in. He recorded just one out before being pulled -- allowing four runs on two hits and three walks.
- The rest of the Yankees' bullpen was able to get the job done behind him -- Jonathan Loaisiga, Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton, and Luke Weaver combined to allow just one baserunner to reach via walk while striking out four over the final 3.2 innings of work.
- New York pushed their lead over the Rays in the AL East back up to 1.5 games.
Game MVP: Aaron Judge
The captain reached base three times, including his 29th and 30th homers of the season.
The Knicks are exercising the team option on center Ariel Hukporti and they are planning to decline the team option on veteran PJ Tucker, league sources told SNY.
Declining Tucker’s team option decreases the Knicks’ payroll by $3.5 million.
The Knicks currently are above the first apron in total team salary and have access to the $5.6M taxpayer exception (they have roughly $196 million in team salary). Contracts signed with this exception can be no longer than two years and contain five percent raises -- you can split the exception to sign multiple players.
By declining Tucker’s option, the Knicks also have the flexibility to sign-and-trade their free agents to bring back a player under contract who makes up to the $5.6 million exception.
If you use the exception to sign a free agent, you are hard-capped at the second apron -- this means you can’t spend more than $207.8 million in team salary.
The Knicks can also use the veteran’s minimum exception to sign free agents.
New York has decisions to make on its own veteran free agents in Delon Wright, Precious Achiuwa, Landry Shamet and Cam Payne.
The team will monitor the backup guard market.
The Knicks are among the teams who will have interest in Shamet once free agency opens at 6 PM on Sunday, per SNY sources. Contending teams in both conferences are expected to have interest in Shamet, league sources say.
The 28-year-old returned from a dislocated shoulder during the 2024-25 season and shot 40 percent from beyond the arc across 50 games in the regular season. He was out of the rotation for much of the postseason but was reinserted to the rotation in Game 3 of Knicks-Pacers.
Shamet delivered, hitting 7-of -13 threes during the series and defending well. The Knicks were plus-21 when he was on the court against Indiana (52 minutes).
The Knicks also on Sunday extended qualifying offer to Kevin McCullar Jr., league sources confirm, as first reported by the New York Post.
Mets outfielder/DH Jesse Winker took a big step in his recovery on Sunday afternoon.
After completing his ramp up from an oblique injury, the slugger was finally able to get back into game action with the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones, and he showed no signs of rust.
Winker drew a six-pitch walk during his first at-bat -- he then went first-to-third on a Eli Serrano III double into the right-center gap, but was caught trying to score on a wild pitch.
An inning later he stepped to the plate with a man on second and two outs, and he missed an opposite-field homer by a matter of inches, but instead settled for an RBI double high off the left-field fence.
He was hit-by-pitch in his third at-bat of the day, then was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the sixth.
Overall, Winker finished the day a perfect 1-for-1 with an RBI double, walk, and hit-by-pitch.
While Sunday's strong outing was certainly an encouraging start, he is expected to require a lengthy rehab assignment since he has been sidelined since the first week of May due to an oblique strain.
Monday is a scheduled day off for the minor leagues, but he is expected to be right back in the Cyclones' lineup as the designated hitter for Tuesday's contest with the Hudson Valley Renegades.
Jesse Winker just barely misses an opposite field home run in Brooklyn
LeBron James' NBA career began with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003 [Getty Images]
LeBron James is set to play in a record 23rd NBA season after his agent said the 40-year-old has exercised an option to extend his contract with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Rich Paul said James, the NBA's all-time leading scorer, was targeting a fifth Championship after activating a $53m (£41m) player option for the 2025-26 season.
"He knows the Lakers are building for the future. He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all," he told ESPN.
"We understand the difficulty in winning now while preparing for the future. We do want to evaluate what's best for LeBron at this stage in his life and career. He wants to make every season he has left count, and the Lakers understand that, are supportive and want what's best for him."
James currently shares the NBA season record with eight-time All-Star Vince Carter. His tally of 1,562 regular-season appearances is just 50 short of breaking former Boston Celtics star Robert Parish's NBA record.
In 2023 he broke Lakers icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's long-standing points record of 38,387 to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer. His current tally stands at 42,184.
James' NBA career began in 2003 when he was drafted first overall by hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The forward joined the Miami Heat in 2010, winning two titles, before returning to lead Cleveland to their only NBA title with a 2016 success.
He has been with the Lakers since 2018 and helped them win the 2020 title, which was also the fourth time James was named NBA finals MVP.
His 20-year-old son Bronny was drafted by the Lakers in the summer of 2024 and they became the first father-son duo to share the court in an NBA game in October.
