{"id":689408,"date":"2026-06-07T07:42:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T07:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/689408\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T07:42:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T07:42:26","slug":"lonzo-ball-it-would-be-hard-for-lebron-james-to-go-back-to-cleveland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/689408\/","title":{"rendered":"Lonzo Ball: It would be hard for LeBron James to go back to Cleveland"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a> may originally be from Northeast Ohio, but for the last eight years, he has called the Los Angeles area home. Since coming to the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> in 2018, he has brought the franchise an NBA championship, and while the last five years or so have been rocky for the Lakers, he has at least kept them relevant.<\/p>\n

He is about to become a free agent this summer, and there is a very real possibility that he will leave. But the 41-year-old has established roots in the region, and that, along with the realities of the NBA’s salary cap, could very well cause him to stay put.<\/p>\n

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Former Lakers guard Lonzo Ball<\/a>, who played one season with James, said on his “Ball in the Family” podcast that it will not be easy<\/a> for James to go back to Cleveland<\/a> if that is what the future Hall of Famer ultimately chooses to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a family and he\u2019s in L.A.,\u201d Ball said. \u201cHe\u2019s been here for the last X amount of years. It\u2019s hard to just pack up and then go back to Cleveland.\u201d<\/p>\n

James has obviously gotten involved in a number of off-the-court ventures since coming to Southern California. His oldest son, Bronny<\/a>, plays for the Lakers, and his other son, Bryce, is at the University of Arizona, just a short plane ride away from the Southland.<\/p>\n

The Lakers should be able to offer the four-time MVP a lot more money than any other team he could be genuinely interested in playing for. They’re projected to have as much as roughly $50 million in salary cap space this summer, and while they have other incumbent free agents they will look to re-sign, the Cavaliers<\/a> will most likely be limited to offering him, at most, the taxpayer mid-level exception of approximately $6 million.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Lonzo Ball: It would be hard for LeBron James to go back to Cleveland<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James may originally be from Northeast Ohio, but for the last eight years, he has called the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[7565,52468,852,3013,19803,299381,1055,355,15808,237927,99],"class_list":["post-689408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-bronny","tag-cavaliers","tag-cleveland","tag-lebron-james","tag-lonzo-ball","tag-los-angeles-area","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-nba-championship","tag-northeast-ohio","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}