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LeBron James is still a free agent. As of now, it’s anyone’s guess as to which of the handful of teams that are vying for his services he ends up with.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are in the running to land James in free agency, but there is company in the group of possible suitors. According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, the Cavs, Miami Heat, and Philadelphia 76ers appear to be the top teams.

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In that report, Charania also said that there “isn’t a timetable” for James to make a decision.

Some of the smoke for a possible signing with the Sixers came from the Game Over podcast. LeBron’s agent, Rich Paul, had Bob Meyers (who led the Sixers searh for a new general manager earlier this summer) on the show to make a pitch for LeBron for the Sixers. That, understandably, raised some eyebrows.

Still, some insiders around the league aren’t comfortable naming who a favorite is, but they do believe that Cleveland and Miami are the safest best.

Chris Haynes said in a radio hit with Deals and Dunks that he wouldn’t name a favorite, but views the Cavs and Heat as “safe landing spots.” Brian Windhorst said something similar with ESPN Cleveland noting that the vibes would feel “right” with the Cavs and the Heat.

We’ve reached a point in free agency where it’s difficult to really figure out what is actually happening. Everyone still seems to be in the dark. We know that the Cavs have a chance — and make the most sense from a storytelling perspective — but LeBron may not think as we do.

We’ll see how this plays out in a free agency process that is continuing to drag out without an end in sight.

LAS VEGAS — The Lakers want Jonathan Kuminga. 

Jonathan Kuminga, also, wants to be a Laker. 

But as of Wednesday afternoon, over a week into the start of free agency, the two sides remained far apart on what it would take to bring the 23-year-old forward to L.A. despite the mutual interest. 

After the Hawks declined Kuminga’s $24.3 million team option on June 29, Lakers president of basketball operations/general manager Rob Pelinka and coach JJ Redick met with Kuminga the following day.

A part of the Lakers’ free-agency pitch to Kuminga, a source told the California Post, was the Lakers seeing Kuminga as a high-level, starting wing who would complete the vision of their roster reconstruction around superstar guard Luka Doncic.

That vision included re-signing Austin Reaves and acquiring a marquee center this offseason – both of which were executed after Reaves agreed to a four-year $185 million deal to return to L.A. and the Lakers agreed to a four-year, $130 million with Walker Kessler in a sign-and-trade with the Jazz.   

But the Lakers’ initial offer to Kuminga didn’t back up the vision they were pitching him.

From there, the Lakers, who entered the offseason with around $52 million in salary cap space, agreed to deals with several players on July 2 that ate into that cap space: Kessler, Quentin Grimes (four years, $60 million), Sandro Mamukelashvili (four years, $52 million) and Collin Sexton (two years, $19 million).

Since then, they opened up more cap space (around $2.1 million) by trading Deandre Ayton to the Wizards for Jaden Hardy and a pair of Washington’s second-round picks (2031 and 2032) but that space essentially vanished when they agreed to terms on a one-year, $3.9 million contract with Kevon Looney that counts $2.49 million against the cap since it’s a veteran minimum’s deal.

That has left the Lakers with one open roster spot and little financial flexbilitity while still pursuing Kuminga. 

Pelinka has stayed in touch with Kuminga’s agent, Verus Management Team president Aaron Turner, over the last week as the franchise has made their moves.

Where things stand now

The Lakers have improved their offers to Kuminga up to a deal that would include an average annual salary around $10 million – which is less than the salaries of Grimes ($13.9 million) and Mamukelashvili ($13 million). 

And less than what was expected in light of how the Lakers expressed they saw Kuminga, who the Lakers pursued as a restricted free agent last summer, according to a source. 

When factoring in the additions of Kessler, Sexton and Looney, plus Reaves’ $20.9 million cap hold, the Lakers would have to shed over $20 million in salary from their 2026-27 roster to create the requisite cap space to sign Kuminga at a salary that starts around $10 million. 

But it’s clear that a $10 million salary for Kuminga won’t get a deal done now. 

Kuminga’s side feels there are better options for him if he joins the Lakers.

The main option that could help the Lakers acquire Kuminga: A sign and trade with the Hawks, which would allow Kuminga to receive a higher salary than the Lakers are able to offer Kuminga as an unrestricted free agent.

A source told the Post the Hawks are willing to execute a sign-and-trade with the Lakers around the framework of Kuminga going to L.A. and the Hawks receiving Jarred Vanderbilt and the Lakers’ 2032 first-round pick swap – the lone option the Lakers have of trading a first-round pick this summer. Los Angeles also has three second-round picks (Wizards two picks and its own 2033 pick) available to trade.

Kuminga’s contract would have to be for at least three or four seasons (not including option seasons), and the first season must be fully guaranteed, if the Lakers acquired him in a sign and trade. 

Vanderbilt has two years and $25.7 million left on his four-year, $48 million contract extension he signed with the Lakers in September 2023. He has a $12.4 million salary for 2026-27 and a $13.3 million player option for 2027-28. 

The Lakers have been willing to trade Vanderbilt, according to multiple sources who spoke with the Post who were granted anonymity so they could speak freely, as well as other players on the roster in order to create more roster-building optionality.  

The Cavaliers also have strong interest in Kuminga, a source said. 

But the Cavaliers, whose head coach Kenny Atkinson coached Kuminga while Atkinson was an assistant coach with the Warriors from 2021-24, are also in the midst of the sweepstakes for LeBron James, who informed the Lakers last week he wouldn’t be returning to the franchise for his record-extending 24th NBA season.

Other options 

As of Wednesday, it wasn’t clear what other options the Lakers would have if they didn’t acquire Kuminga – or at least ones that would fit into their vision similar to how they’ve expressed to Kuminga. 

Or fufill their combination of needs for size, athleticism, defense and youth on the wings. 

Ziaire Williams, who’s coming off a career-year with the Nets, is a player the Lakers eyed after the Nets declined Williams’ $6.3 million team option to make him an unrestricted free agent. 

Bruce Brown, Matisse Thybulle and Ochai Agbaji are other unrestricted free agents still available.

The Lakers have long been tied to trade rumors with Mavericks forward PJ Washington, a former teammate of Doncic’s in Dallas, but the fully guaranteed $88.8 million Washigton’s owed over the next four years isn’t appealing to the Lakers. 

Realistic Kuminga number?

The Lakers are projected to be $12.9 million below the $209 million first apron threshold that they’re hard-capped at once all of the moves they’ve agreed to so far are official. 

This leaves them room to take back more money than they send out in a potential sign-and-trade for Kuminga, or a deal for any other player. 

The salary range that Kuminga is seeking from the Lakers wasn’t clear as of Wednesday.

What is clear is that Kuminga wants to be a Laker. And the Lakers want Kuminga. 

The vision and opportunities the Lakers have presented are appealing. 

But there’s work to be done for alignment on the Lakers’ offer to Kuminga before a deal can be reached. 

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The Golden State Warriors may want LeBron James, but they are not building their entire offseason around him.

As James continues to weigh his options for his record 24th NBA season, Golden State remains connected to the biggest free-agent stories in the league. But according to ClutchPoints’ Brett Siegel, the Warriors already have backup plans if the LeBron chase falls short.

“If they miss out on LeBron James, they’re gonna try to have some other plans in place to get some other players,” Siegel said on “Clutch Scoops.”

That matters for a franchise trying to maximize the final stretch of Stephen Curry’s career. And they are not operating as if Curry is looking for a way out.

“Stephen Curry is not going anywhere,” Siegel said. “All those saying he needs to go somewhere to a team that wants to contend for a championship… [The Warriors] are a team that’s committed to winning with Steph.”

Curry backed up that idea during a recent golf event, where he spoke about his connection to the Bay Area and the Warriors fan base.

“It’s just a matter of being grateful that I get to represent one fanbase for, hopefully, my entire career,” Curry said.

That should quiet speculation about Curry leaving to chase another ring elsewhere. The more realistic question is whether the Warriors can put enough around him to make one more run possible.

James would obviously be the splashiest answer.

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Curry has not hidden his interest in the idea of finally playing with the player he spent years battling in the NBA Finals. Asked about James during the same golf event, Curry joked that he may be just as interested in LeBron’s golf game. Then Curry got to the basketball part.

“I’m sure we obviously would love to play together,” Curry said. “Hopefully it happens. But he’s deserved the opportunity and the right to take his time with the decision.”

A Curry-James pairing would be one of the strangest late-career twists in NBA history. But the Warriors appear to understand the risk of waiting too long for a dream scenario.

Curry is 38. The West is not waiting for the Warriors to figure it out. Golden State needs help, whether that means LeBron James or the next-best thing.

The two most important things in NBA team building are stability and flexibility. The Cleveland Cavaliers strengthened their position in both when they agreed to a four-year extension with seven-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell on Tuesday morning — the first day Mitchell was eligible to sign it.

On first blush, the deal looks like an overpayment. The contract runs through 2029-30 and has a player option for a final season in ‘30-31. The total money on the deal could be up to $273 million.

This is how the money shakes out on a per-year basis:

• 2027-28: $60.9 million
• 2028-29: 65.8 million
• 2029-30: $70.6 million
• 2030-31 (player option): $75.5 million

At the start of this deal, Mitchell will be making 35% of the entire salary cap. By the end, that balloons to 37.5%. That is a large financial commitment for a then-34-year-old undersized guard to be making in a league where every dollar spent either takes you closer or further from contention.

It’s easy — and maybe even understandable — to look at this as an overpay. Team building is incredibly difficult when you have that high a percentage of the cap designated to one player, especially one who is closer to being the 15th-best player in the league than the fifth.

What that line of thinking overlooks is the importance of stability and flexibility. If you have both, there’s always a path to pivot out of something that isn’t working.

Depth is incredibly important in today’s league. That’s been the one commonality among recent champions. So is having a superstar getting paid max money.

Dedicating more than a third of the salary cap to one player isn’t a detriment to depth. Adding multiple players on max contracts can be an issue.

The Jaylen Brown situation with the Boston Celtics is an interesting case study in this.

From afar, my reading of the situation isn’t that Brown was moved because he made too high a percentage of the cap for the player that he is. Instead, it was the fit between him and Jayson Tatum that was the issue. Boston couldn’t justify spending 70% of the cap on two players who had overlapping skills on both ends and needed the ball in their hands to be productive.

Brad Stevens, Celtics president of basketball operations, more or less outlined this in his recent press conference discussing the trade. Stevens said:

“The path looked a little bit more challenging with 70% of our cap and such a high percent of our usage tied into two players. And the reality in this era and in this day and age at the NBA, you could see it obviously, with the last couple of champions…you have to do a great job and you have to have the optionality to do a great job of building out depth that can hopefully replace the irreplaceable individual. And that’s not an easy thing to do, right? And we get that. And that’s absolutely nothing against Jaylen. If you have Jaylen Brown on your team, you should feature him. You should use all those possessions, and you should approach things that way. But I think the importance of depth, and then obviously we have to continue to work on ways to diversify our attack overall.”

This is where things get dicey for the Cavs.

The salary cap is expected to be slightly over $174 million for the 2027-28 season, which is when Mitchell’s salary kicks in.

At that point, he and Evan Mobley will be making a combined $114.7 million. That alone accounts for two-thirds of the salary cap.

That high a percentage for two players is a red flag. If you don’t have a pool of contributing role players on team-friendly deals or homegrown talent stepping up, your team simply won’t have the depth needed to win at the highest level.

The solution to this issue isn’t to try to pinch every penny out of your star players who have earned those contracts. It’s to trade out these contracts and retool if the situation calls for it.

It’s easy to look at the Brown trade to the Philadelphia 76ers as a disaster. They didn’t get the splashy return that you’d hope to get for a player of that caliber.

But they did get pieces that help them retool while still being a contender this upcoming season, and have more flexibility to improve in the future with a more manageable cap sheet. That wouldn’t have been possible if Brown were entering the last year of his deal or on a contract that wasn’t market value.

A contract is only bad if you wouldn’t be able to trade it for positive value. Even though the current CBA has made the super team, three max-contract player model less viable, there are teams that would be willing to trade for either Mitchell or Mobley with their current contracts.

We’ll start with Mobley on this.

There were rumors in the past year that the Milwaukee Bucks, Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Celtics all had interest in Mobley. Two of those organizations are considered to be among the smartest in the league. If they’re willing to trade for Mobley, you can be assured that there’s a market for him and his current contract.

Trade rumors for Mitchell have died down in recent years because of his contract situation. Still, I’d have a hard time believing there wouldn’t be multiple teams that would part with valuable assets for Mitchell — especially with the amount of time remaining on his deal once he were to become trade-eligible.

A team with that much of the cap committed to Mitchell and Mobley may not be viable years down the road. At that point, Cleveland would need to move one of them for potentially more depth or a star pairing that works better together.

However, that wouldn’t be an option in the future if the Cavs hadn’t gotten this long-term commitment from Mitchell. The decision would have been made for them.

There’s an alternate reality where the Cavs decided to play hardball with Mitchell. They don’t give him the full extent of the max contract, and both sides don’t come to an agreement this summer. If that happened, they could choose to play out this season and hope to come to a better agreement next offseason. The lack of extension would likely loom over the season and influence any trade they could otherwise make because you wouldn’t have the certainty of Mitchell being on your team long-term.

That scenario would get worse if you were forced to trade Mitchell with just one guaranteed year left on his deal. Teams would know that he had to be moved, and the price for his services would be greatly diminished.

The Cavs avoided both of those options.

Instead, everything is on the table now. If they want to move off either Mitchell or Mobley in the future, they should be able to do so while getting fair market value back in return. They bought time and future opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have without this extension.

Long-term success comes from having options and being able to pivot when needed. The Cavs can do so with their top-two players guaranteed under contract through the 2029-30 season. That alone makes the Mitchell contract a great deal.

LeBron James is no stranger to criticism or public scrutiny.

As one of the NBA’s superstars, the 41-year-old is used to the being in the spotlight and all that it comes with.

James received mixed reviews by the public for his decision to leave the Los Angeles Lakers after eight seasons. He will likely continue receiving praise and backlash in this next stage of his career.

Being the top free agent of the summer means James makes headlines everyday as everyone is curious where the veteran will land. There seems to be a general consensus that the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat are favorites in the James sweepstakes, but what is James didn’t return to a former team and instead chose a new one?

NBA insider Brian Windhorst answered the question and explained why there may be added criticism for James if he joins a team he’s never played for throughout his storied career.

“It would be interesting, not surprising,” Windhorst said on the Yahoo Sports Daily podcast. “One of the things that I think LeBron is going to have to decide is how much he cares about what people will think if he goes to a team he’s never played for. Basically, if he chooses somebody besides Cleveland or Miami. Because Cleveland and Miami, it’s a very clean decision. It makes sense.

“Does he want to deal with what the reaction would be if he went to Philadelphia or Minnesota or Denver or something like that where it would be a sort of new place and he would have to create new ties and learn new routines. And also deal with people calling him a ring chaser or what have you.

“I think that’s an extra layer that he’s had to grapple with. I think he absolutely could do it. I don’t think that’s a reason he’d say no.”

As James mulls over options, he’s looking for the place where he’ll find complete happiness. According to his agent Rich Paul, the four-time NBA champion is prioritizing contentment over a championship.

Perhaps, he could find both somewhere this summer.