LeBron James responds to Lakers exit rumors after being linked with shock move despite opting into $53m deal
James was spotted at the Cavaliers practice facility on Friday and took a picture with Cleveland NBA Summer League rookie Denver Jones.
Any movement from James about his future is under a microscope these days, after Paul told ESPN that James 'wants to compete for a championship' but 'knows the Lakers are building for the future.'
On Thursday, James was linked with a possible move to the Mavericks, with ESPN's Dave McMenamin saying on ESPN Radio 710 that Dallas would be interested in James only if he was bought out by the Lakers.
Now, a reunion in James' home state was seen as a possibility, then shot down by the 40-year-old living legend himself.
Responding to the photo of being spotted at the Cavs' stomping grounds, 'And every summer since it was built. I live here still and train every summer. Got damn yall bored man! Go get a plate of food somewhere and enjoy the 4th of July!' James said on X Friday.
James has been with the Lakers since 2018, when he departed the Cavaliers for a second time.
His recent days in Los Angeles have seen the team hire good friend JJ Redick as head coach. His son, Bronny James, was also selected by the Lakers in last year's NBA Draft despite mediocre college stats at best.
The Lakers finished third in the Western Conference with a 50-32 record following their blockbuster acquisition of Luka Doncic in February, but looked outmatched in the first round of the playoffs as they fell to the Timberwolves in five games.
Los Angeles now looks to be planning a future with Doncic as the centerpiece instead of James, a first for him entering his 23rd season in the NBA.
'He values a realistic chance of winning it all,' Paul told ESPN. 'We are very appreciative of the partnership that we've had for eight years with [controlling owner] Jeanie [Buss] and [GM] Rob [Pelinka] and consider the Lakers as a critical part of his career.
'We understand the difficulty in winning now while preparing for the future. We do want to evaluate what's best for LeBron at this stage in his life and career. He wants to make every season he has left count, and the Lakers understand that, are supportive and want what's best for him.'
James hails from Akron, Ohio and was on the Cavaliers from 2003-10 and again from 2014-18, bookending his stay with the Miami Heat.
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The Guardian
22 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Listen to Joey, sport is always trying to tell you something, even by the medium of hot dogs
The Big Dog is back. And the Big Dog is hungry. Hungry, above all, for dogs. Joey Chestnut has fulfilled his sporting destiny by reclaiming his world champion crown at the legendary 4 July hotdog eating contest in Coney Island, New York. Chestnut, AKA The Silent Warrior, is basically the Messi of elite eating. Or rather he's the Ronaldo, relentless in his perfectionism, possessed of an alluring competitive arrogance, and with the GOAT-level numbers to back it up: winner of the Mustard Belt now 17 times and the world record-holder as of 2021, when he ate 76 hotdogs in 10 minutes, a huge uplift on his debut in 2005 when he ate a frankly pathetic 32 hotdogs. Above all, Chestnut had a point to prove. He was banned from competing last year over a controversial sponsor deal with a plant-based hotdog alternative. Losing the title was a kind of Icarus moment. No one is bigger than the sport. Eating had to rein him in. And so this time around it wasn't about the $100,000 (£73,000) prize. It was about legacy. 'I'm back doing what I love,' Chestnut told the cameras ahead of Thursday's weigh-in. Which is, it seems, cramming an unbelievable amount of hotdogs into his face, and doing so in a contest that, frankly, feels like one of the few things that actually makes any sense this week, perhaps even the greatest and most fundamentally honest of all current human activities. Mainly, this is about will and about passion. 'I want to push myself,' Chestnut told USA Today, going on to talk about marginal gains and the tiny details of preparation, about taking up yoga, about working on rhythm, on ever-smoother delivery. There is talk of applying an 'electric simulation machine' to his abdomen 'to get everything loose', of endless tinkering with the temperature of the water used to dampen the buns, of burping exercises to develop the internal muscles, asthma drugs to improve air flow, open the sinuses and increase his capacity for stuffing hotdogs into his face. Plus of course the daily hard yards of the eating athlete. Chestnut performs endless neck hoists with a 7kg weight attached to a mouthguard. 'When I'm raising up, I'm almost imagining I'm swallowing, so I'm thrusting my tongue against the leather strap the mouthpiece is glued to.'' You've got to admit. This is incredibly sexy. The real kicker, as ever in elite sport, is attitude. Joey Chestnut? Joey Chestnut brought aggression to eating. He is looking for 'a perfect mix of anger and calm'. This is all very real. Three years ago he was forced to employ a chokehold on a stage invader who had run on in a Darth Vader mask to protest against killing animals just so people can stuff them in their mouths. Chestnut didn't stop. He still won by 15 dogs. This is eating heritage. And yes it is also highly confusing. Is this whole thing ironic? Is the world hotdog eating championship a joke? Nobody seems to really know. The stage announcer certainly seems to think it is a comedic event. The crowd has a kind of loose, spring break frat boy vibe. But there are rivalries here, men's and women's events, a massed judging corpus, stats and fandom, and of course that cash prize. It feels real, or like a thing that has become so unexpectedly. This is also not about mocking America: Brit-snobbery, the oh dear what have they done now Jeeves dynamic. I love America, love it as an idea and also as a place, as energy and colour and (even now) optimism. I also love hotdogs and can cram in up to one of them at a single sitting. But at the same time, it is also impossible to overstate how disgusting the hotdog eating championship is as a spectacle, and in every sense of the word. You probably think you already know it's disgusting. Well, you don't know nothing Mr Garrison, because you've never been confronted by an endlessly replicating pork-beef dog coated in your own semi-vomit. The world hotdog eating championship looks, and there is no other way of putting this, like a self-loathing high-speed fellatio marathon, the competitors constantly nodding their heads, thrusting in food with both hands, finishing up coated in bun paste and meat-goop, looking stricken but also impossibly excited. All of this is spectated by a mob crushed up into the notorious Splash Zone, with its crouching judges, its stern warnings about 'flying debris'. To be fair, you can really see the neck exercises pay off at this point. The natural assumption is the eating athletes will be large. They're not. They're buff, trim, competition-ready. Joey Chestnut's head is perfectly rounded with muscle, like a boxer's biceps or a gymnast's core. If I were to nitpick I would suggest making the sport more robust with a rule that all dogs and buns must be consumed as a whole, not tearing it apart and going dog then bun, which is essentially ball-tampering. Otherwise, it is a compelling spectacle, and in its own way very honest too. All American sports are basically an excuse to eat things, a complex machinery entwined around the founding desire to have a hotdog. The hotdog championship cuts to the chase, like reducing football to a one-kick penalty shootout. Here is the thing you actually want. Just have it. It is the perfect sport in structural ways, too. All sports are supposed to reflect a culture, to express some part of the character of a nation, even in bastardised form, like bullfighting in Spain, or the way cricket dramatises the English class system. And yes it would be easy at this point to mock America's dysfunction around food, but this also is a relationship with roots in something real and beautiful: abundance, prosperity, fecundity of the land, tired hungry masses settling a new frontier. Eating was stitched into the American century. JK Galbraith's famous 1957 study, The Affluent Society, concluded 'capitalism works', as proved beyond doubt by excess consumption. 'More die in the United States of too much food than of too little,' he concluded, back when this was a good thing. So food is freedom in America. 'Tastes like Freedom' is a common banner at the hotdog championships, even if that taste turns out to be a bolus of compacted sawdust-sausage the size of a moped. And even if like so many of the freedom things – cars, sex, guns – this is a freedom that has bolted terminally out of hand. Daily life in America can feel like being chased by food, constantly craving the perfect salty sweet hit that is America's gift, burdened by the patriotic duty to consume. Restaurants that look like car showrooms. The idea that a salad is in fact some kind of toxic assault by steroid-fed flaps of ungodly meat. The fact even in high-end places the business is still fetishising food: the greatest burrito in the world, the most organic vegan dim sum ever devised. America and food is so obviously dysfunctional you start to feel you could fix the whole place if you went at it symptoms-first. Don't stop eating. Just stop eating that. And yes, this is all doubly, trebly, hyper-disgusting when America is also in effect sponsoring a famine in Gaza, and all the while staging a hotdog competition where Joey Chestnut can win $100,000. But there is domestic sadness to this, too. The hotdog is one of those American objects, icons of the everyday, things that feel even now like a shot at happiness fallen wide. The hotdog origins story is suitably diffuse, credited to a sausage vender at the 1906 St Louis World Fair, or to a moment of founding genius in Louisiana in 1904, or to Germans everywhere who were already putting 'dachshunds' in buns. It doesn't matter. There should be a vague and folksy feel to this. The hotdog is immigrant food, sports field food, egalitarian food. This is American symbolism, American art. It's Gatsby's green beacon, Jack Kerouac burning like a roman candle, Ignatius Riley pushing his hotdog trolley around New Orleans and muttering about the wheel of fate. And now the hotdog has been updated, via the Joey Chestnut show, into a klaxon of decay and excess. Basically, everything is a hotdog eating contest now, from sport to business, to the shared human experience, all of us in the wealthy world assailed by this agony of consumption, wants, desires. In the same week of the world hotdog eating championship the UK government has even started pushing weight loss drugs as a healthy living choice. We will create a world full of calories, we will take away your green space, stick you in front of a screen, make your life a matter of passive consumption. Then when it gets too expensive to fix your mind and body, well, we have an injection for that. Shoot this thing full of painkillers, antidepressants and weight loss jabs, we might just about muster up a functional human. So Joey Chestnut and his hotdog performance speaks in a way that is oddly heartening, an act of punkish satire. This is the life you have made for us, Joey Chestnut is saying, human need extrapolated to a wild extreme. I will take this world and hold up a mirror, turn it into a spectacle that mocks the spectacle. Enter the splash zone, Big Food. Feel his spittle on your face. It does always feel like sport is trying to tell you something, even here, via the medium of hotdogs. Sometimes well, sometimes you just get the heroes you need.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Cole Palmer hails ‘special' Estevao as new Chelsea signing stars against new club
Cole Palmer is looking forward to linking up with Estevao Willian after seeing the teenage talent close up in Chelsea 's Club World Cup defeat of Palmeiras. The highly rated 18-year-old winger scored a superb goal to cancel out Palmer's opener as Palmeiras pegged the Londoners back in an absorbing quarter-final encounter in Philadelphia. Chelsea eventually prevailed 2-1 – and set up a last-four clash with another Brazilian side in Fluminense – after Malo Gusto forced a late own goal but the impression made by Estevao was strong. Palmer, who spoke to and swapped shirts with his soon-to-be team-mate after the game, said: 'I just said we look forward to seeing you but he didn't understand that word I said! 'But, yes, he's a top player. Obviously, he's only young as well. When he comes to England, people need to give him time to adapt to the culture, the language. 'He's still only 18 or 19 but you can see he's got amazing quality and we look forward to seeing him.' Chelsea controlled much of the first half at Lincoln Financial Field and took the lead after a nice turn and finish from Palmer after 16 minutes. It was the 23-year-old's first goal for club or country in nine appearances and he ran to the touchline to celebrate with defender Tosin Adarabioyo, who was among the substitutes. 'That's my boy,' said Palmer of his fellow Manchester City academy graduate. 'Obviously, I've had a difficult time these past whatever months on and off the pitch, but he's always been there for me and he's helped me a lot. I just thought I'd go over to him.' Estevao levelled after 53 minutes with a superb strike from a tight angle but Chelsea snatched victory seven minutes from time when Gusto's cross took deflections off Agustin Giay and goalkeeper Weverton ended up in the net. Palmer felt the introduction of new signing Joao Pedro, who came off the bench to make his debut in the 54th minute, proved crucial. Palmer said of the £60million recruit from Brighton: 'I think he did very well. 'Obviously, he's been on holiday in Brazil and we didn't know what to expect from him (in terms of) match sharpness but I think he changed the game.' Despite being on the losing side, Estevao was named player of the match and his coach Abel Ferreira believes Chelsea have made a brilliant signing. The Portuguese said: 'I spoke with (Chelsea manager) Maresca (and told him), 'you bought an amazing player but, more than this, you bought an amazing person. You need to take care of him'. 'He is a player who can win a game alone with the dribbling, the shot. With new players and a new coach he will grow as a player and a person. 'In England the sun appears two or three times a year and the nights come early but Chelsea have the conditions to support him.'
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Jon Jones performs retirement U-turn and announces return to UFC testing pool after Dana White lying claims
JON JONES has performed a stunning retirement U-turn and re-entered the UFC's drug testing pool. The former pound-for-pound king brought the curtain down on his legendary career late last month, seemingly ending fans' hope of a heavyweight title unification with Brit Tom Aspinall. 5 5 5 5 But the 37-year-old, who has been incredibly active on social media since he hung up his gloves, has seemingly had a change of heart and appears to want to fight again. After getting wind of Donald Trump 's plans to host a fight card on the grounds of the White House, Jones wrote on X: "Fighting at the White House? "Just re-entered the testing pool, that lasted for about two weeks. "Figured we'd keep everyone's options open." Jones' revelation quickly became the talk of MMA fans, one of whom commented: "The GOAT is back." Another said: "Genius. Bones knows how to play the game of legacy making. Aspinall wasn't it." And another said: "Yeah, buddy. I hope to god u come back and beat on Tom. Just to shut everyone up. "I personally just want to see u fight again and it doesn't matter the opponent." JOIN SUN VEGAS: GET £50 BONUS 5 One remarked: "Tom gets a fight booked and all of a sudden you're making a comeback? lol alright Another chimed in: "This was a smart play by Jon. "By retiring and having the UFC strip him, he no longer has the pressure to fight the #1 guy. "He can now fight any other big names of his choice for a final payday." Jones' vacating of the heavyweight title and retirement saw Wigan warrior Aspinall promoted from interim to undisputed heavyweight champion. The UFC desperately tried to make a unification bout between the pair and even met Jones' demands to be paid " F**K YOU MONEY" to make the fight happen. UFC supremo Dana White claimed Jones "agreed" to the fight before performing a U-turn, a notion the Hall of Famer denied. Jones has since claimed he retired LAST NOVEMBER and that the UFC were well aware of his decision. White dismissed that claim when recently asked by SunSport, saying: "That's not true. "I'm telling you the truth. Believe who you want to believe." News of Jones' retirement came just hours before it emerged he had been charged with fleeing the scene of an accident in New Mexico in February. An "intoxicated" woman found at the scene, who was "lacking clothing from the waist down", claimed Jones was the driver of the vehicle. Jones, who alluded to threats of violence while on the phone to police at the scene, has vehemently denied the allegation and insisted the woman found in the car drove away from his house while intoxicated.
