In anticipation of the coming NBA campaign, ESPN polled 20 coaches, executives and scouts across the league, and one of the questions concerned the future of Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James.
Specifically, the question asked was: Where will LeBron James be at the start of the 2026-27 season?
The answers to that question should catch the eyes of fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
League personnel has tabbed the Cavaliers as the second-most likely team to be employing James at that point behind only his current squad, the Lakers. He’s been a Laker since the 2018-19 campaign and is heading into his eighth season with the organization.
“If I was taking the Lakers or the field,” one scout said, “I’d take the field. But I’ll take the Lakers over any specific team, especially given they are the one with a clear path to pay him.”
But plenty of people voted that James will retire following the coming season as well, and that appears to be a distinct possibility. James turned 40 years old back in December after all, and he will set the record for most seasons played in league history by suiting up in the 2025-26 season.
“It just feels like it’s where it’s going to end,” a Western Conference scout said.
If James were to rejoin the Cavaliers, the team that drafted him with the No. 1 overall pick all the way back in the 2003 NBA Draft, it would mark his third stint in Cleveland.
First, he spent his opening seven seasons in the league with the Cavaliers from the 2003-04 season through the 2009-10 campaign. Then, he carved out a four-season stint with Cleveland that produced the first title for the Cavaliers in franchise history in 2016 and ended in the summer of 2018.
It’s hard to imagine James could end his pro career on a more poetic note than if he were to play his last game in the league in a Cavaliers uniform, but there’s more appeal to Cleveland as a landing spot for the 40-year-old outside of merely his history with the franchise.
The Cavaliers have a core intact that could contend for years to come, and the acquisition of James would arguably help them take that leap from title contenders to title favorites.
All in all, while Cavaliers fans should be focused on the coming season first and foremost, it’s hard not to get excited about the possibility that James will be back in Cleveland next summer.
