LeBron James Could Have Stayed With Lakers Had Mark Walter Sold the Team Earlier, Says Insider

Back in February 2025, one blockbuster trade signaled where the Lakers’ long-term plans were actually headed. Not around their aging superstar, but around the 25-year-old they’d just acquired from Dallas. That shift in direction, insiders say, is exactly what pushed LeBron James out the door 18 months later, and recent reports suggest that the timing of an entirely separate business deal could have played a role too.

ESPN’s Dave McMenamin asked a source close to LeBron James whether an earlier ownership change might have altered his free agency decision.

“Maybe,” the source said. “But that’s tough to answer. Communication could have been better [with Iger and Kushner, compared to with Walter]. Just a different relationship. But the basketball piece was the most important, so maybe not from that standpoint.”

The source doesn’t claim that James would have definitely stayed. But it does establish something more specific: that communication and relationship-building with James under Mark Walter’s Lakers ownership was, per the source, worse than what he could have expected from Iger and Kushner.

It suggests that part of James’ exit wasn’t only about the Doncic-centered direction of the roster. But about how that direction was communicated to him, and by whom.

Since acquiring Luka Doncic, the Lakers’ entire long-term build shifted toward the 25-year-old rather than the 41-year-old James. A reality that became apparent as the season wore on. By the time free agency opened, James’ departure was described around the league as an “amicable divorce” rather than a bitter split.

A Sale That Arrived Just Weeks Too Late for James

James informed the Lakers of his decision to leave in early July and signed with Philadelphia. Walter’s sale of his controlling stake to Iger and Kushner was reported by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne only weeks later, for a valuation 25% higher than what Walter paid the Buss family just over a year earlier.

Had the new ownership group’s involvement arrived even a month or two sooner, it’s at least plausible James could have factored that into his decision rather than making it under Walter’s outgoing regime.

Reaction to the report has been mixed. Some coverage has pushed back on the idea that new ownership would have changed anything material. They argue that the shift toward Doncic was evident from well before the trade deadline and that James’ exit was already inevitable regardless of who signed his checks.

Others see the report as one more entry in what’s been called the “messiest offseason” in recent Lakers history. A summer that included a franchise-record ownership sale, a superstar’s departure to a rival contender, and now questions about whether better timing could have kept one of the most decorated players in franchise history in purple and gold for good.