{"id":762782,"date":"2026-06-27T01:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T01:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762782\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T01:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T01:58:14","slug":"free-agent-notes-lebron-harden-mamukelashvili-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762782\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Agent Notes: LeBron, Harden, Mamukelashvili, Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a> is just days away from officially becoming an unrestricted free agent, but according to ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania, the star forward and the Lakers have yet to engage in serious discussions about what his next contract might look like if he remains in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a check-in call made, to my understanding, early in free agency, once teams were able to start negotiating with their own free agents after the NBA Finals,\u201d Charania said during Thursday\u2019s episode of NBA Today (YouTube link<\/a>). \u201cSince then though, there hasn\u2019t been much communication, from my understanding, between the Lakers and LeBron James\u2019 side. And certainly not an offer yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers were able to work out an early deal<\/a> with Austin Reaves<\/a> because it won\u2019t affect their potential cap room during free agency \u2014 they\u2019ll keep Reaves\u2019 more favorable cap hold on their books until after they\u2019ve made their moves, then cap use his Bird rights to go over the cap to re-sign him. However, since a deal for James could have a more significant ripple effect on the rest of the Lakers\u2019 offseason moves, they\u2019re considering what else they could do before circling back to LeBron with a more concrete proposal, Charania explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re trying to see what can we do with this $50MM of (cap) space, potentially, and then where does that leave LeBron,\u201d Charania said.<\/p>\n

Here are a few more notes and rumors on free agents from around the NBA:<\/p>\n

Marc Stein and Jake Fischer of The Stein Line<\/a> (Substack link) continue to hear that the Cavaliers and guard James Harden<\/a> are on track to reach a verbal agreement in the coming days on a new contract for the former MVP. Harden\u2019s decision on a $42.3MM player option is due on Monday, but the expectation has long been<\/a> that he\u2019ll decline that option to sign a new multiyear deal with Cleveland.
\nThe Raptors have budgeted internally for an offer of about $10MM per year for free agent center Sandro Mamukelashvili<\/a>, according to Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca<\/a>. That would likely be contingent on trading Gradey Dick<\/a>\u2018s expiring salary, Grange notes. It would also presumably require the Raptors to use a portion of the mid-level exception on the big man, since they only hold his Non-Bird rights<\/a>. However, multiple league sources who spoke to Sportsnet expect Toronto to face plenty of competition for Mamukelashvili. \u201cI think he\u2019s getting multiple years guaranteed at more than $10 million a year,\u201d one of those sources told Grange.
\nAfter issuing a two-way qualifying offer<\/a> to Alijah Martin<\/a>, the Raptors are attempting to work out a multiyear standard contract with their 2025 second-round pick, Grange reports (via Twitter<\/a>). Martin played sparingly in the NBA as a rookie, but had an excellent season in the G League, averaging 18.5 points per game on .485\/.392\/.720 shooting in 39 outings for the Raptors 905.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James is just days away from officially becoming an unrestricted free agent, but according to ESPN\u2019s Shams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[243482,64,63,726,48172,1173,7896,70739,85],"class_list":["post-762782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-alijah-martin","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-gradey-dick","tag-james-harden","tag-lebron-james","tag-sandro-mamukelashvili","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}