LeBron James

The Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James is reportedly the first NBA player to become a billionaire while still actively playing.

Forbes' Chase Peterson-Withorn reported Thursday that James' net worth surpassed the $1 billion mark after he earned $121.2 million in 2021.

The 37-year-old Ohio native is one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. He lived up to the hype as a generational prospect in 2003 to become one of the greatest basketball players in history, highlighted by four NBA championships and four MVP awards.

Based on Forbes' valuation, James has tallied $385 million in on-court earnings as part of a 19-year career with the Lakers, Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat. He's set to make another $44.5 million next season in L.A. as part of his two-year contract.

He's added another $900 million from off-court ventures, including endorsements contracts, per Forbes.

That revenue stream was bolstered last year by the release of Space Jam: A New Legacy, which featured the NBA's longtime gold standard in a starring role and also included his SpringHill Company as one of the movie's production groups. It's generated $162.9 million in worldwide sales.

James is the largest stakeholder in the SpringHill Company, which itself carries a $725 million valuation, according to Forbes.

Other aspects of his estimated net worth include $90 million from the Fenway Sports Group, which includes MLB's Boston Red Sox, the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins and the EPL's Liverpool, $80 million in real estate and $30 million from Blaze Pizza.

In 2021, James confirmed his desire to become the owner of an NBA franchise.

"I got so much to give to the game. I know what it takes to win at this level. I know talent," he told reporters. "I also know how to run a business as well. And so, that is my goal. My goal is to own an NBA franchise, and it will be sooner than later."

If that comes to fruition, he'd be following in the footsteps of Michael Jordan, the owner of the Charlotte Hornets, who became the first NBA player to hit $1 billion in net worth after his on-court retirement.

James continues to play at a high level, although injuries have become a bigger factor in recent years, and he's stated his desire to finish his playing career alongside his oldest son, 2024 draft prospect Bronny James.

"My last year will be played with my son," James told Jason Lloyd of The Athletic in February. "Wherever Bronny is at, that's where I'll be. I would do whatever it takes to play with my son for one year. It's not about the money at that point."

As a new member of the billionaire club, James can afford to push contract value to the back burner for one year to close out his Hall of Fame career. There's no indication he's getting close to walking away from the NBA, though.

After a dismal 2021-22 season, the Los Angeles Lakers needed a win. Choosing Darvin Ham to coach the franchise was just that. The Lakers hired the most promising candidate on the market.

But any move comes with risk, and the rookie head coach will have to prove himself on the job with one of the most influential players in the league in LeBron James and one of the more headstrong ones in Russell Westbrook. The roster still has the same issues that former coach Frank Vogel couldn't solve—but fixing those will fall more heavily on the front office.

Ham may not have the roster to compete at the top of the Western Conference, with the Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies, Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks—plus the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets when they're at full strength.

For Ham's sake, the Lakers must build a winning streak this offseason with a series of moves to give him a chance.

The Known

Ham is well-liked. He has fans across the league in competing front offices. He has an infectious, energetic personality that the Lakers experienced firsthand when he was an assistant for two seasons (2011-12 and 2012-13).

And while he's extremely likable, he's not frivolous. Players respect him as a mentor because of his 19 seasons in the league (eight as a player, 11 as an assistant), one championship as a physical wing with the Detroit Pistons and another as part of Mike Budenholzer's staff with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Budenholzer's assistants have gone on to have success around the league—most notably the group he had with the Atlanta Hawks: Quin Snyder, Taylor Jenkins and Kenny Atkinson.

For far too long, NBA teams have relied heavily on those with head coaching experience. Experience is essential, but that rigidness hasn't helped diversify the coaching ranks—how do you get experience as a head coach if teams constantly dip into the same pool of retreads?

That's not to suggest that finalists Atkinson and Terry Stotts weren't great candidates. Both are excellent coaches who deserve shots at lead jobs. But teams seemed to make necessary corrections last summer, hiring a slew of first-timers such as Ime Udoka and Willie Green. Both were standouts in their first opportunities to run a team.

The Lakers took a similar and necessary leap of faith with Ham. Waiting for a more experienced candidate such as Snyder or Doc Rivers to become available was a fool's errand. Both are under contract. The Utah Jazz or Philadelphia 76ers would have likely demanded draft compensation to allow the Lakers to poach their head coach.

Why give up assets when Ham earned his opportunity and was willing to sign a four-year deal?

The Unknown

From their initial meetings, the Lakers front office should have a strong sense of Ham's coaching philosophy, specifically in terms of the roster. Will Ham have the necessary pieces around James, Westbrook and, in theory, a healthy Anthony Davis?

Can he get Westbrook to focus defensively? Can he offset the team's lack of outside shooting (specifically with Westbrook and Davis), or can top basketball executive Rob Pelinka rebalance the roster with offseason trades and signings?

If the answers are yes, and the Lakers are healthy enough to earn a playoff berth, will Ham be ready?

It's one thing to sell a front office on your vision. It's another to build a team identity for the regular season. But for a squad that intends to contend, it's an entirely different skill set to out-adjust an opposing coach in a heated playoff series. And then another and another and, if the Lakers believe they can quickly rebound into a genuine title contender, another.

On paper, Ham doesn't have the roster to win. But neither did the Boston Celtics until they made a series of offseason and in-season moves. The Lakers have only three players on fully guaranteed contracts (James, Davis and Talen Horton-Tucker), two with team options (Stanley Johnson and Wenyen Gabriel) and one non-guaranteed salary (Austin Reaves). Two with player options (Westbrook and Kendrick Nunn) are all but locks to be back barring a trade or trades.

The Lakers have zero draft picks and a long list of free agents with non-Bird rights who are limited to re-signing at 120 percent of their previous salaries (which probably isn't nearly enough to keep Malik Monk). Los Angeles should have about $6.4 million in the taxpayer mid-level exception. That might be enough for Monk, but then it would return nearly the same roster with minimum players to round it out.

Ham may need Pelinka to find a new level of creativity to build a contender. Coaching in L.A. comes with a lot of pressure. And in a competitive conference, the roster needs a lot of work to give Ham a legitimate chance to prove himself.

What's Next?

Ham will fill out his staff after he was promised the autonomy to do just that (a luxury Vogel did not have).

Like the rest of the league, the Lakers will work out players and attend scouting sessions to try to find talent (like the next Reaves or Alex Caruso). If the opportunity comes to buy a pick in the June 23 draft, the Lakers can offer up to $4.4 million in a trade before July.

Teams can also agree to buy a pick in June but wait until July to execute the deal with a larger cash pool of $6.3 million. L.A. may not have the appetite to spend $10.7 million to buy two or more picks, but it has the means.

The options for Westbrook, Nunn, Johnson and Gabriel need to be decided on before July. The first three deals will be fully guaranteed if the options are exercised, while Gabriel's $1.9 million wouldn't lock in until early January. The Lakers' decision on Reaves' $1.6 million won't come until January as well, but he should be a lock to return.

Only Mason Jones can be made restricted, coming off a two-way contract. The rest of the team's free agents will be unrestricted, including Monk, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Wayne Ellington, Kent Bazemore, Avery Bradley, D.J. Augustin and Mac McClung.

The NBA will announce the salary-cap figure June 30. Teams can negotiate and agree to terms with free agents, but most signings and all trades will need to wait until July 6, after the moratorium ends. Any swaps the Lakers execute before July will be based on 2021-22 salaries. That could make the Oklahoma City Thunder a viable trade partner for Westbrook in June, with up to $31.8 million in cap space that will all but disappear July 1.

The Lakers don't appear willing to dump Westbrook in a trade if the cost is too high in outgoing draft considerations. They may be open to taking on multiyear contracts, assuming that James will stay with the franchise beyond the coming final season of his deal. But in the absence of a deal that makes them demonstrably better, the Lakers may keep Westbrook.

Another option is waiving and stretching his remaining salary over three years, which would drop the franchise under the luxury tax. It may be the least costly move to institute change—adding the non-taxpayer mid-level exception of roughly $10.3 million, the bi-annual exception of about $4.1 million and/or greater flexibility for trades.

Two additional years of dead money for Westbrook in the $12-15 million range shouldn't hurt the Lakers' future flexibility. They would just defer tax from 2022-23 to the following two seasons since the team isn't likely to get far enough under the salary cap if James intends to stay with the franchise through 2025.

Whether the Lakers can improve by stretching Westbrook, it doesn't seem to be an idea they're seriously considering—at least that's what several competing executives believe.

Perhaps last year was an outlier marred by injury and poor strategy. Ham may unlock something in Los Angeles, but he's facing an uphill battle.

Ham's reputation as a head coach is tied to the front office. He needs the pieces to win. The Lakers were bold enough to hire a first-time head coach, bringing in the best candidate on the market. Now they need to find a way to give him a competitive roster.

Email Eric Pincus at eric.pincus@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter, @EricPincus.

Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors have seen a lot during a dynasty that is now threatening to span a decade. They've played by far the most high-stakes series and squared off with the widest variety of superstars, MVPs and would-be dethroners during their six Finals trips in eight years.

But they've never seen anything quite like these Boston Celtics.

Every opponent brings unique challenges, and every playoff series is different. But as the Warriors advanced through this postseason, their history prepared them at every step.

Nikola Jokic is on a level all his own as a point center who operates as his team's offensive fulcrum, but the Dubs successfully applied many of the lessons they learned facing peak Marc Gasol in the 2015 West semifinals to the Joker.

When the Warriors faced Gasol's old Memphis Grizzlies in the second round, they had to wrangle a dynamic, game-changing point guard in Ja Morant (until he went down with a knee injury). That might have intimidated a less experienced team than Golden State, which bested Russell Westbrook and his extreme athleticism in the 2016 Western Conference Finals.

And Morant, for the record, did not have 27-year-old four-time scoring champion Kevin Durant at his side.

The latter part of the 2022 Grizzlies series saw Memphis go big and lean on its rugged defense. Golden State adjusted and advanced, perhaps because those old 2015 Grizzlies were even bigger and more physical than the modern version. The OKC frontcourts featuring a young Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka and Durant also gave the Warriors core and its coaching staff a primer on how to handle a massive size and athleticism disadvantage.

Finally, Luka Doncic and his heliocentric genius arrived in the conference finals. Good thing Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Kevon Looney and head coach Steve Kerr had already eliminated an even more lethal version of that team four years ago. The 65-win Houston Rockets of 2017-18 featured a prime James Harden and a switch-happy defense that pushed Golden State to the brink—but not over it.

Singular superstars no longer faze a Warriors team that took three out of four Finals from LeBron James, perhaps the greatest postseason test-prep tool of them all. A squad that survives the tactical brilliance and physical onslaught of James can confidently face off with anyone and say, "We've seen worse."

Through those five consecutive trips to the Finals from 2015 to 2019, the Warriors core went toe to toe with the best the league had to offer—in all shapes and sizes. They derailed a potential dynasty in Oklahoma City, turned Grit and Grind to dust in Memphis, prevented Harden from one-man-showing his way to a ring in Houston and denied James the extra titles that would have put the GOAT debate to bed.

What could these Celtics possibly offer that Golden State hasn't seen (and solved) before?

Start with the numbers.

Boston's net rating this season was a plus-7.4. That's not the best full-season figure these Warriors have faced. The 2016 Thunder matched that number exactly, and the 2018 Rockets were even better at plus-8.4.

However, we know the overall stats don't produce an accurate picture of the Celtics as they exist today. Remember, this team got off to a stumbling start and didn't find its stride until head coach Ime Udoka's schemes sank in and Marcus Smart took over the point on a full-time basis.

After Jan. 1, the Celtics destroyed the league, running up an obscene plus-12.7 net rating that dwarfs anything Warriors playoff foes of the past ever mustered.

Numbers aside, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are a one-two wing punch the Warriors have never really seen. They're the predictable result of late-2010s Golden State forcing opponents to stockpile as many two-way, weakness-free wings as possible. Those have always been the key to defending the Warriors' attack. The Tatum-Brown duo also brings a youth-experience combination the Dubs have yet to face. Brown is 25, and Tatum is 24, yet they already have seven conference finals berths between them.

But that's not even where the real novelty (or terror, if you're a Warriors supporter) arises. The true threat is in the way Boston is an amalgamation of so many of the top squads Golden State has seen over the years.

The Celtics were the best defense in the league this past season. And though the Warriors have survived elite individual stoppers in the past, they've never seen a collective group with that distinction in the Finals. What's more, Marcus Smart is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year—basically the ideal weapon to set against Curry, Thompson, Jordan Poole and anyone else with designs on scoring.

Golden State has played against plenty of former DPOYs in past postseasons—Gasol in 2015, Rudy Gobert in 2017 and Kawhi Leonard in 2019—but this will be the first time tangling with one that currently holds the trophy. Combined with Tatum, Brown and Boston's mobile bigs, Smart gives his team the best chance anyone's ever had at putting a stop to the Warriors' three-ring circus of off-ball movement and quick-trigger passing.

In addition to ideal personnel, the Celtics also employ a switching scheme that has historically given the Warriors fits. But while those old Rockets teams switched so frequently in part because they had shaky defenders to hide, the Celtics employ the NBA's switch-heaviest approach because they're great at it.

Per ESPN's Kevin Pelton, "No other team switched more frequently than the Celtics during the regular season, and they rank second in frequency (44%) so far during the playoffs."

Boston brings the heft of past Grizzlies and Thunder teams, the pick-and-roll-crippling switchability of the Rockets and none of the weak points any of those opponents possessed.

And for all the intimidating dominance LeBron brought to the table in those four Finals tilts, his Cavs never had the stopping power of these Celtics. Cleveland's best defense during its repeat dates with the Warriors ranked 10th (2016) and was as low as 29th (2018).

The Warriors built their impressive resume by facing down new challenges. There was no blueprint for beating the Harden-led Rockets, the James-led Cavs or Thunder teams Russ and KD captained until the Dubs sketched one themselves. The Celtics' novelty doesn't make them unbeatable, and we should expect Golden State to locate and attack pressure points—like the Celtics' relatively suspect offense, which bogged down late and nearly cost it Game 7 against the Miami Heat in the East finals.

The Warriors finished second in defensive efficiency to the Celtics this year, which means they'll still have a chance to succeed even if Smart and Co. put the clamps on.

The Kerr-era Dubs will head into their sixth Finals with a depth and breadth of experience few have ever had, yet they could quickly find themselves searching for answers that their past can't provide.

You could frame Boston as a new threat or a combination of many old and familiar ones. Either way, the Warriors are in for a fight unlike any they've seen.

Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Accurate through 2021-22 season. Salary info via Spotrac.

When the Los Angeles Lakers hired Darvin Ham as their head coach, they arguably tasked him with the toughest gig in the Association.

The roster reads like a collection of pieces from different puzzles, and Ham is already working against the clock to form it into a complete, cohesive picture. LeBron James' 37th birthday is behind him. His NBA championship window could close at any moment.

Some—including the stat sheet—would argue the presence of Russell Westbrook is a hindrance to those hopes. That's why the working assumption entering this offseason was that L.A. would put its high-priced point guard on the first flight out of town.

Apparently, the Lakers had other ideas.

While a Westbrook trade shouldn't be ruled out, L.A. doesn't seem desperate to deal him. The Lakers "have no intention of using a first-round pick to facilitate a Westbrook trade," The Athletic's Jovan Buha reported Friday. It's virtually impossible to picture a Westbrook trade happening without a first-rounder to sweeten the pot.

Now, could this be posturing on the part of the Purple and Gold? No question. However, Buha addressed that issue in the report, too, calling the early refusal "not merely a bluff or tactic to try to regain leverage in trade talks." Buha then added, "there is a sentiment among some within the franchise that the right coach and a better supporting cast could smooth over Westbrook's awkward fit with James and [Anthony] Davis."

Could Ham be that coach?

The simple answer is: It's complicated.

On one hand, there are reasons to believe the Lakers are in great hands with their new skipper. The 48-year-old played nearly a decade in the league (suiting up for the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons that knocked off the superteam Lakers in the Finals) and has since coached in it for a decade. He has coached stars like Kobe Bryant and Giannis Antetokounmpo and emerged from the fruitful Gregg Popovich-Mike Budenholzer coaching tree.

Ham's experience and ability to relate to players could help him form relationships that his predecessor, Frank Vogel, never could.

"If you look around the league now, the coaches who are having successes ... [not only have] excellent knowledge but an ability to connect and hold [players] accountable," a league executive told Yahoo Sports' Vincent Goodwill. "He has a personable blend of that. A strong individual. He can garner respect from his players."

Vogel and Westbrook never got on the same page. That fact reportedly contributed to Vogel's ouster, per The Athletic's Sam Amick.

If Ham connects with Westbrook, maybe that's the key to turning things around. There's a universe in which Westbrook gets repurposed as a screen-setter and slasher who spends most of his time off the ball. That role could maximize his efficiency by giving him point-blank chances and opportunities to create offense for his teammates out of short rolls.

Then again, if the idea of putting a player in the right spot means having a 33-year-old, former MVP play a brand new style, that might suggest fit issues that no coach can solve.

Westbrook does his best work with the ball in his hands. So does James. If Davis ever stays healthy, he'll need plenty of chances, too, since L.A.'s hopes are almost entirely in the hands of its stars.

James is the only serviceable shooter of the three. Spacing will be at a premium regardless how the front office constructs the rest of this roster. Defense could be tricky, too, since Westbrook has never played it at a high level, and James' mileage sometimes forces him to conserve energy at that end, particularly if he continues being tasked with a heavy workload.

Ham, of course, knows all of this going into the gig, and the fact he still sought out the gig is a good sign. Surely, he has a vision of how this can work with Westbrook. It sounds like Ham might command the kind of locker room pull to sell that vision to his team.

Still, this only works under the assumption that any coach could navigate their team around the logistical issues that Westbrook's arrival created in L.A. Based on how this past season played out, it's fair to remain skeptical that this puzzle can ever be solved.

Pinned in the deep right corner with 2.2 seconds left on the shot clock, blanketed by Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart and well beyond the point of exhaustion after 45 minutes of cardiovascular torture, Jimmy Butler had no business hitting the biggest shot of the 2022 NBA postseason.

Then again, Butler's epic performance in Miami's 111-103 win over the Boston Celtics on Friday was basically defiance incarnate. 

So of course he made it.

Butler, hobbled for much of the Eastern Conference Finals by a bad right knee, staved off elimination with 47 points in 46 maximum-intensity minutes. Simply keeping the Heat alive on the road would have been enough to earn Butler's game heroic status. But to do it against the league's best defense, on the heels of some of the most uncharacteristically poor postseason efforts of his career, well... "heroic" doesn't quite cover it.

Let's call it legendary.

Teammate Kyle Lowry, who shook off his own rough stretch of games to put up 18 points and 10 assists, had his own colorful characterization. Earmuffs for the kids.

Celtics fans might spend the 48 hours ahead of Game 7 using more profanity than that, as Butler's night was eerily familiar.

When LeBron James racked up 45 points in a Game 6 road win over Boston 10 years ago, it was essentially a king-making performance. James and the Heat went on to win Game 7 in Miami and secure the first of two straight titles.

Boston's last championship team disbanded shortly after that.

That game stood out as one of the most significant in James' career and certainly one of the most pivotal in Heat franchise history. But the Celtics team whose heart James ripped out a decade ago was a faded version of past greatness, led by the sunsetting versions of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. James and the juggernaut Heat shouldn't have even been in a position to face elimination back then.

Butler and the battered Heat are squaring off against something different entirely. These Celtics were unquestionably the best team in the league for the final three months of the season, and they're far healthier than Miami. There's a reason Boston came into Friday's tilt as massive favorites. All signs pointed to the Celtics closing things out until Butler looked at the odds and laughed.

Turns out that's something he and the Heat do a lot.

Zooming out from the specific Heat-Celtics rivalry, what Butler accomplished is exceedingly rare. He didn't just raise the bar for elimination-avoiding performances in franchise history. He nearly set a new one for the NBA as a whole.

And again, the specific circumstances making Butler's night so improbable can't be ignored. He entered Game 6 having scored 27 points on 10-of-40 shooting in Miami's previous three games. His knee kept him out of the entire second half in Game 3, and he barely glanced at the basket during hobbled, passive outings in Games 4 and 5.

For the better part of a painful week, he looked nothing like himself. But the real Jimmy Butler emerged when Miami needed him, and it was so abrupt and unexpected that observers turned to wild speculation in a search for answers.

There might be a better explanation.

Perhaps Butler and the Heat feed on defiance itself. Maybe long odds sustain them. And maybe direct slights like, say, a potential Finals opponent predicting the Celtics would advance, had the effect of supercharging the Heat's natural inclination to lash out at doubt.

By that logic, the Celtics could take solace in the fact that Miami may well be favored to win Game 7 at home. Maybe the Heat are less dangerous when they're expected to succeed. That's a small, unlikely source of hope. But it's something.

Then again, it seems reasonable to doubt Butler can repeat a performance like the one he turned in Friday. That might be all he and the Heat need to channel their best, most resistant selves.

After the 13-point loss in Game 4 on Wednesday that shoved Miami to the brink of elimination, head coach Erik Spoelstra said: "If you want to break through and punch a ticket to the Finals, you're going to have to do some ridiculously tough stuff."

Butler didn't stop at "ridiculously tough" on Friday. What he did felt closer to impossible.

Dare you to doubt he can do it again.

The Los Angeles Lakers hired Milwaukee Bucks assistant Darvin Ham as their new head coach Friday, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, and superstar LeBron James voiced his support for the move on Twitter shortly after it was revealed.

Ham was one of three finalists for the Lakers' head coaching job, joining Golden State Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson and former Portland Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium. 

According to Wojnarowski, Ham made a "strong impression on [the] Lakers in several areas, including his championship pedigree, his commanding presence, history of coaching stars and toughness."

Ham replaces Frank Vogel, who was fired after a disappointing 2021-22 season in which the Lakers finished 11th in the Western Conference standings with a 33-49 record and missed the playoffs. 

That said, the 48-year-old has his work cut out for him.

The contracts of James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook (player option) would take up nearly 74 percent of the salary cap, and the Lakers struggled with their team chemistry throughout the 2021-22 campaign.

If Westbrook stays in L.A., Ham will be tasked with helping the guard get back to his high level of play after his underwhelming first season with the Lakers.

LeBron James wants change in the wake of yet another mass shooting in the United States.

The Los Angeles Lakers star responded to Tuesday's shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, by offering his thoughts and prayers to those affected and adding, "These are kids and we keep putting them in harm's way at school. Like seriously 'AT SCHOOL' where it's suppose to be the safest!"

According to CNN, the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed 19 children and two teachers were killed. 

The gunman was also killed. 

The latest shooting comes shortly after a gunman killed 10 people and injured three more in a shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets store in a largely Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, earlier this month, per CNN.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said it was a racist hate crime attack, and the suspect told authorities he was targeting the Black community, per CNN.

Separately, one man was killed and five others were wounded earlier this month at a Taiwanese church service in Orange County, California, according to CNN. 

It is notable James pointed out children are supposed to be the safest when they are at school because of how involved he is with education off the court.

The LeBron James Family Foundation helped open the I PROMISE School in Akron, Ohio, with its website saying it is "dedicated to those students who are already falling behind and in danger of falling through the cracks."

James has long been a public advocate of the importance of education, and thousands even signed a petition for him to be the United States Secretary of Education in 2018.