By Weston Blasi

James's agent has told the Los Angeles Lakers that he intends to sign with a new team, according to a new report

LeBron James intends to play for a franchise other than the Los Angeles Lakers next season, according to ESPN.

NBA legend LeBron James on Tuesday officially decided to come back for a record 24th season, but informed the Los Angeles Lakers he won't play for them anymore, according to ESPN's Shams Carania.

James, 41, has played the past eight seasons with the Lakers, but is now a free agent and can sign with any NBA team. But there's reporting to suggest that one team is emerging as a front-runner: the Golden State Warriors.

According to several NBA news-breakers, including Bleacher Report's Jake Fischer and ESPN's Brian Windhorst, the Warriors are attempting to sign James this offseason as he departs the Lakers. And the betting odds are painting the Warriors as one of the favorites.

The Warriors at one point were a -500 favorite (83% implied probability) to be James's next team on DraftKings Sportsbook, and prediction market website Kalshi has them as the favorite too, giving James a roughly 45% chance of joining the Warriors.

James joining the Warriors would be a monumental move, as the Bay Area franchise was once a major rival of his while he was playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers. But it would also concentrate some of the biggest earners in NBA history.

James is the NBA's all-time leading scorer, but just an impressively, he's also the NBA's all-time leading earner, with $581 million in wages earned through 2026. If he joins the Warriors, he would be teaming up with Stephen Curry, the NBA's third-highest earner in history, at $470 million.

Never in NBA history have there been two players on the same team whose combined career on-court earnings eclipsed the billion-dollar mark.

What's more, the Warriors also currently have forward Jimmy Butler on their roster, who is the eighth-highest-paid player in NBA history, with $366 million in earnings through 2026.

Those three players alone have amassed over $1.5 billion in career earnings on the court, a staggering figure when considering that NBA franchises such as the Minnesota Timberwolves have recently been sold for that amount of money.

Here are the highest-earning players in NBA history as of the 2025-'26 NBA season, according to sports contract-monitoring site Spotrac.

The top 10 earners in NBA history through 2026.

Of course, the above earnings do not take into consideration any off-court compensation the players earn, which can be tens - or even hundreds -of millions of dollars more.

Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber bought the team for $450 million back in 2010, a record at the time. Since then, the team has enjoyed unprecedented success on and off the court. The team won four NBA titles, and had its franchise valuation jump to $11.3 billion as of last season, according to Forbes estimates.

And the potential addition of James, even for one season, would likely create even more buzz around the franchise, leading to more ticket and merchandise sales, and subsequently increasing the value of the team even more. Multiple industry sources told MarketWatch that any team that landed James in free agency would see a major spike in interest and potential increases in club revenues.

While it's still uncertain which franchise James will join, the answer should be coming soon, as NBA free-agency negotiations begin next Tuesday at 6 p.m. Eastern.

From the archives: How a millionaire outbid a billionaire to buy the Golden State Warriors in 2010

-Weston Blasi

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