As LeBron James enters the season on an expiring contract with the Lakers, speculation as to where he will play next season has already begun.
Earlier this week, ESPN released an offseason survey where it asked team executives about the league’s best player, who had the best offseason and for future predictions. One question posed was where James will be next season with multiple teams getting votes while others voted for retirement.
On Tuesday, longtime ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst, who has covered James since the four-time champion was in high school in Ohio, said on his Hoop Collective podcast the survey lacked another possible answer: “Other.”
In July, James was spotted on a yacht along with longtime business partner Maverick Carter, Nuggets star Nikola Jokić, and his European agent Miško Ražnatović in Saint-Tropez. The group discussed Carter’s prospective European league, which is reportedly aiming to launch in the fall of 2026.
Windhorst said Ražnatović recently appeared on a Serbian podcast and was asked about the meeting on the yacht and the prospective league. Ražnatović reportedly said he’s had multiple meetings with Carter and didn’t know he was meeting James until the day before their July conference on the yacht took place.
Carter and James “are planning a certain group of investors, a classic business to create a league that would somehow also compete with the NBA,” Ražnatović said on the podcast, according to Windhorst’s translation. “They don’t want it to be a U.S. league, they want it to have a European flavor, so to speak. And when they started working on it, everyone told them to call me.”
Carter is planning his league while the NBA looks into its own version of a league in Europe. NBA commissioner Adam Silver recently said at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit that he’s aware of Carter’s plans and considers him a friend, but hasn’t kept up with its developments.
“To the extent they’re looking to do something competitive, I’ve stayed away,” Silver said. “Obviously that’s their right, if they choose to form a league. I know firsthand it’s not easy running a league. But competition is good, it keeps everyone on their toes.”
Not much is known about Carter’s league beyond that it will likely comprise six men’s and six women’s teams playing in eight cities around the globe. But little else has been said, which is why it may not even be feasible for James to play in his friend’s league next year, even if he wanted to.
But Silver said at Tuned In the NBA is aiming to launch its overseas venture in the next few years once it resolves some European regulatory hurdles and gets a better handle on the continent’s arena infrastructure, which is outdated.
“I think we could start with some of the existing arenas and then transition,” Silver said. “So ‘27 is ambitious, there’s no question about it, but I don’t think I’d want to go much longer than ‘28. The opportunity is now to do something like this.”
