The King is coming. The Court will be named later.
LeBron James announced his utterly predictable move to the Lakers on Sunday, a four-year, $153.3 million deal that will end the club’s five-year exile from the NBA playoffs and might even bring the Lakers their first league championship since 2010.
There is little question that James is an NBA colossus. No perimeter player in basketball history has dared to dream of being that big, quick, visionary, levitational or indestructible.
His arrival is the most celebrated of any of the great pro athletes who have come to this area since Edmonton traded Wayne Gretzky to the Kings in 1988. It is more consequential than Albert Pujols’ decision to sign with the Angels after the 2011 season, when the three-time National League MVP had led St. Louis to a World Series championship.
And it has more sudden impact than Shaquille O’Neal’s commitment to the Lakers in 1996.
James is 33 and getting better. In the 2017-18 season he led the NBA in minutes played for the second consecutive season and notched career highs in rebound average and assist average. He averaged 34 points in the Cavaliers’ 22-game postseason and got to the free-throw line nearly 10 times per game.
He has played 10,049 minutes in the playoffs. No other active player is at 8,000 and, of course, young Lakers such as Kyle Kuzma, Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball have played zero. He has been destined for supremacy since he was in high school in Akron, Ohio. And yet there never has been a New Kid In Town to eclipse him.
“I don’t know when Father Time is going to start to make a difference for him,” said Doc Rivers, the Clippers’ coach, in March.
But the Kings did not win a Stanley Cup with Gretzky, and the Angels have made one playoff appearance with the aging Pujols, and the Lakers did not get to the NBA Finals or win one with O’Neal until 2000, his fourth season in town.
The Golden State Warriors, winners of three of the past four NBA titles, return largely intact and in their prime. The Boston Celtics reached Game 7 of the Eastern finals last year without All-Stars Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, both of whom will play in 2018-19.
With Cleveland and Miami, James has played in a ridiculously monumental eight consecutive NBA Finals. His teams have won three titles in nine Finals trips. In the two years when he had the least help, 2007 and 2018 with Cleveland, he suffered a Finals sweep.
And help is on the way, assuredly. When, and from whom, are the questions, and those questions got trickier last weekend before James committed to Los Angeles.
Paul George of Oklahoma City was supposedly ticketed for the Lakers as a free agent but he re-signed with the Thunder on Saturday.
Another potential free agent target would be Demarcus Cousins, the lavishly talented center from New Orleans.
Two problems, at least, with Cousins: He is recovering from an Achilles tendon rupture and he needs to fit into a maximum-salary shot on the Lakers’ payroll, or else the club would be subject to a punitive luxury tax.
There were reports Sunday that the Lakers were going to re-sign guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for $12 million, add Lance Stephenson for $4.5 million and JaVale McGee for $2.4 million. That, according to salary cap experts, would prohibit Cousins from fitting in.
Caldwell-Pope would seem to be a spare part for the Lakers, although he shot 39.3 percent from the 3-point line last season and averaged 13.4 points. He cost them $17.7 million last season after he played out his option in Detroit. This made sense after people realized Caldwell-Pope’s agent is Rich Paul, who is also the agent for James.
Then there is Kawhi Leonard. He is the San Antonio Spurs’ All-Star who is from Riverside, is known as the best young 94-foot player in the game, and has made it clear he wants to be a Laker after his contract expires in 2019.
Leonard and the Spurs are barely speaking these days. The two sides dispute the way Leonard handled his recovery from a quadriceps injury. Leonard played only seven regular-season games and was nowhere on the scene when the Spurs lost their first-round playoff series.
The Lakers would like to get Leonard sooner instead of later. They realize they whiffed on George, who was the type of team-carrying player James wants alongside him.
But San Antonio has no obligation to deal Leonard and can wait until next February’s trade deadline if it wishes. It also could demand Kuzma and/or Ingram and/or Ball and a host of draft picks from the Lakers.
If the Lakers could somehow sign Cousins they wouldn’t have to deplete their lineup and could wait to sign Leonard next summer.
These are rather cushy problems, but so are the expectations. The Royal Wedding is all over but the vows. The parade is still unscheduled.
