Report: Lakers Owner Jeanie Buss Considered Trading LeBron James to Clippers

LeBron James was close to being a Clipper, per a new ESPN report. | Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

On Wednesday, ESPN reporter Baxter Holmes published an in-depth insider article on how the Buss family sold the Lakers for $10 billion to Mark Walter in 2025. News of the sale was shocking when it first broke and remains so today, even months after the sale was finalized. Holmes’s wide-ranging piece details the process behind the decision to sell and the conflict between the Buss siblings at the center of it all.

The ESPN report also includes some very interesting tidbits on how Jeanie Buss, previously the controlling owner and CEO of the franchise, felt about LeBron James’s tenure in Los Angeles. The generational superstar chose to join the Lakers in free agency back in 2018 and won a championship in 2020. By the time the team sold, Buss had begun to “turn on” James, Holmes reports.

She felt the star had an “outsized ego” and didn’t like the perception that James saved the Lakers by signing there despite the struggles Los Angeles went through after Kobe Bryant’s retirement. Holmes reports things got worse after the infamous Russell Westbrook trade; Buss “bristled” about James’s “lack of accountability” for his role in bringing the former All-Star point guard to Los Angeles.

Buss’s discontent with James got to the point where she thought about trading him to the cross-town Clippers.

“In 2022, in the aftermath of the Westbrook trade, multiple people said Jeanie privately mused about not giving James a contract extension and, later that year, even about trading James, with the L.A. Clippers floated as a possibility,” Holmes reported.

While “musing” about a trade doesn’t mean it came anywhere close to fruition, it’s still bonkers to even think about. A team trading LeBron James of their own volition is crazy enough. James was not quite at the peak of his powers in 2022 but was still a top-10 player at worst— not to mention how valuable he is off the court as perhaps the most famous athlete in the world. Imagine if the Lakers, of all teams, decided to trade him. And then imagine if they traded him to their in-city rivals!

What an alternate universe that would be. It would be a stunner on par with the Luka Dončić trade. It’s fun to consider how the Clippers’ fortunes would have changed, too. They probably would have had to give up either Kawhi Leonard or Paul George to land James but otherwise would have added The King to a roster that won 44 games in 2022-23. Perhaps he would have been the one to snap the franchise out of the malaise that has plagued them for their entire existence.

The Lakers are surely glad Buss didn’t pull the trigger. They would have been slammed until the end of time for trading James. More than that, who knows if they land Dončić without the partnership of James and Anthony Davis over the last few years?

The future is safe in Los Angeles with Dončić in the fold and the deep, deep pockets of the Walter ownership group backing the franchise. But the Holmes report serves as another reminder for fans of how quickly things can change based on the whims of those in charge.

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