{"id":189909,"date":"2025-10-04T17:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T17:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/189909\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T17:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T17:58:07","slug":"lakers-gm-rob-pelinka-trying-to-force-lebron-james-hand-on-retirement-says-skip-bayless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/189909\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers GM Rob Pelinka trying to force LeBron James’ hand on retirement, says Skip Bayless"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lakers GM Rob Pelinka trying to force LeBron James’ hand on retirement, says Skip Bayless<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Lakers are taking a cautious, wait-and-see approach when it comes to NBA legend LeBron James. For the first time in his career, James is on an expiring contract, with no clear direction for what comes after this season. His agent, Rich Paul, has already informed the Lakers to take the long view with him.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cAs I reported on NBA Today, the plan is for LeBron James to be present for the Lakers’ first practice Tuesday but will be limited in his on-court participation, sources told ESPN. LeBron\u2019s camp conveyed to the Lakers\u2019 brass to be \u2018overly cautious\u2019 and take the long view in Year 23,\u201d ESPN\u2019s Dave McMenamin posted.<\/p>\n

During the opening press conference with Rob Pelinka and new head coach JJ Redick, the Lakers made it clear that LeBron\u2019s future is entirely up to him. Pelinka, in particular, emphasized that the decision is in James\u2019 hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing we want to do in terms of LeBron and his future is just give him absolute respect to choose his story with his family in terms of how many years he’s going to continue to play,” Pelinka said.<\/a> “He’s earned that right.”<\/p>\n

While this approach seems respectful, Skip Bayless believes Pelinka\u2019s comments had an ulterior motive \u2014 to push LeBron toward retirement.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo the NBA, it is now upon us. And the cold war continues between LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. So last week, if you noticed, Rob Pelinka tried to ease LeBron into retirement, into a retirement announcement,” Bayless said.<\/a><\/p>\n

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If true, this would be a surprising development and raise questions about the current relationship between James and Pelinka. The offseason \u2014 and the tone heading into the new year \u2014 has been strange, to say the least.<\/p>\n

Retirement is undoubtedly on the horizon, but James will make that decision on his own terms \u2014 not anyone else\u2019s. And if Pelinka truly is trying to force LeBron\u2019s hand, that would be a new low.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lakers GM Rob Pelinka trying to force LeBron James’ hand on retirement, says Skip Bayless originally appeared on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,94933,31706,2327,8231,459,4210,31707,20801,82],"class_list":["post-189909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dave-mcmenamin","tag-jj-redick","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-rich-paul","tag-rob-pelinka","tag-skip-bayless","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}