Philly would be an infinitely better fit for LBJ if they're willing to trade Simmons for a better fitting young elite SG piece. Cuz i just dont see a LBJ/Simmons tandem working out unless they spend another season or two tweaking it around and Simmons develops an outside shot.
Now that CLE is pretty much on its way to a 4-0/4-1 beatdown by GSW, LBJ is prolly already mentally checked out.
HOU and PHI is our primary opponents in nabbing LBJ's services.
HOU is the best team and CAN get LBJ if CLE is willing to play ball in an opt in and trade scenario. However their path to gaining LBJ is the most difficult as they also gotta find a 3rd AND 4th team to eat unwanted salary in Gordon/PJ/Nene/etc. Too many moving parts that can **** things up. Not to mention who knows if LBJ is cool with risking his future, he might want to sign a mega max 4 year deal now and not do 1+1. It's honestly quite clear that CP3 may have just cost himself a massive payday by doing his opt in. He's another year older and more banged up and clearly proven his body cant handle the rigors of a deep playoff push til the end. Yet another gamble, will CP3 be healthy?
PHI is the next best team. All they need to do is dump Bayless for pure cap, not hard, just use their own 1st #26 easy peasy. Decline another of their cheap players and theyre at 35.3+m free cap. Their issue is team fit. Embiid is awesome and will be the best big LBJ will have played with, but Simmons is gonna be a problem as he's basically playing a young LBJ game IE no outside shooting. RoCo and Saric are very nice young forwards who can shoot and Fultz still has a chance to be special. I truly hope Colangelo sticks around or that whole Twitter/Burner account debacle sours LBJ on that franchise. If i'm Philly, i'd explore what i can get for Simmons and be ready to pull the trigger if i can find a good young SG on a rookie deal to bring in that meshes well with LBJ + roster. Then pitch it to LBJ and pull it if he says yes. Otherwise i think adding LBJ to the roster as is, isn't something LBJ is eager to roll the dice with, a player like Simmons get heavily neutralized when teams can gameplan. Having that LAL 1st #10 is quite nice chip to play with.
LAL is in a nice spot. We can, without trades, free up the cap to go get LBJ/PG13. If we can pull a miracle trade of Deng + lots of stuff for pure cap we're in even BETTER shape to put ALOT of help around our 2 stars. PG13 himself is a damn good 2 way player who elevates his game in the POs and is willing to take a backseat when needed as shown by his play in OKC. Our kiddie brigade fills in quite nicely around LBJ. Kuzma is a stretch 4 who has some ISO ability in a pinch and shown he that he's not scared of the big moment. Ingram is a do it all slasher who's starting to flash a solid 3pt shot. Lonzo is just missing a solid 3 pt to be considered the PERFECT PG to pair with a LBJ led squad. If we keep Randle that's a huge extra cherry on top that gives us even MORE firepower to help Lebron with or at the very least help give the team another look to throw at a playoff opponent.
Sadly none of our stars are shown to be ALPHA DAWGs yet, but they're likely to not have any personality clashes when its clear that LBJ and PG13 are gonna be the 1/2 leaders, and most of their game meshes very well around them.
And we have Magic, cmon now, who can say no to a smiling Magic, with his glittering business empire in LA
If i were to post odds i'd lay it
10% CLE - Nostalgia is a bitch
25% HOU - If theyre willing to pay the assets to move the money around they can def get Lebron if he wants in
30% PHI higher if theyre willing to trade Simmons - they're in the East, cakewalk to finals is always attractive
35% LAL higher if we dump Deng for pure cap space - this team is READY made for 2 stars to lead the way
This is gonna be one helluva offseason
