{"id":787874,"date":"2026-07-08T22:19:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/787874\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T22:19:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:19:23","slug":"warriors-are-repeating-a-brutal-history-in-their-lebron-james-pursuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/787874\/","title":{"rendered":"Warriors are repeating a brutal history in their LeBron James pursuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN insider Shams Charania\u00a0reported on Tuesday<\/a> that the Warriors are not among the top three teams in the race to land the 41-year-old superstar. The current top contenders, according to the top insider, are the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers and the Philadelphia 76ers.\u00a0Charania went on fellow ESPN star Stephen A. Smith\u2019s eponymous podcast, which was published Wednesday morning<\/a>, and had a further breakdown of the current sweepstakes for James.<\/p>\n

Charania said he believes 10 teams have a \u201cstanding offer\u201d for James. The Warriors\u2019 pitch<\/a>, as many have reported, is to get James together with his longtime combatants turned friends Steph Curry, Draymond Green and coach Steve Kerr. (Charania even said Green and James are golfing together this week.) But according to Charania, the Warriors are now among the teams \u201con the periphery\u201d of the James pursuit, in part because they aren\u2019t acquiring former James co-star Anthony Davis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Warriors\u2019 whole plan going into free agency was, \u2018OK, let\u2019s see if we can get Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, LeBron James and Anthony Davis,\u2019\u201d Charania said. \u201cAnd I think the big draw for\u00a0LeBron James with the Warriors would be, \u2018Let\u2019s see if there\u2019s an avenue to be a package deal to the Warriors.\u2019 And so short of that, I don\u2019t think the Warriors are up on that list. I think the Warriors believe they\u2019re not up on that list unless they\u2019re able to go package for an Anthony Davis.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the NBA offseason has proceeded and free agents have flown off the board, the team that\u2019s made the biggest push into the running is the Sixers, thanks to their blockbuster trade for Celtics star Jaylen Brown. Bob Myers, the ex-Warriors general manager who is in a prominent multi-sport role<\/a> with the Sixers\u2019 ownership group, even appeared on Rich Paul\u2019s podcast<\/a> on Wednesday to sell Philadelphia as the best place for James.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Warriors have mostly stayed pat while waiting for James \u2014 despite no one really knowing what<\/a>, exactly, James is looking for out of this free agency or how long he will take to decide. Green may be golfing with James and pitching the Dubs, but it sure doesn\u2019t seem like this Golden State roster is built to be a title contender even with James, let alone without him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a great negotiation strategy to go into trade talks with the other team knowing you must have their player to complete your plans. (Just ask the Clippers about that<\/a> with the Paul George trade.) But that sure looks like the corner the Warriors have backed themselves into here, if you trust Charania\u2019s reporting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So either the Warriors repeat the Clippers\u2019 horrible trade to make a one-year run for a title with an aging and oft-injured quartet of Curry, Davis, Green and James. Or the Warriors once again didn\u2019t make any moves<\/a> while pursuing a fantastical idea of pairing up superstars, only to end up nowhere close to actually landing said superstar. Either move is history repeating itself in a way that doesn\u2019t reflect kindly on Joe Lacob<\/a>, Mike Dunleavy<\/a> or the Warriors brass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN insider Shams Charania\u00a0reported on Tuesday that the Warriors are not among the top three teams in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,288679,85],"class_list":["post-787874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sfgsports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787874","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=787874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}