LeBron can sign a four-year max contract with Cavs next summer

LeBron James may just sign a four-year max contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers next summer.

Next season, LeBron James can opt out of the final season of the three-year contract he signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016 and he’s widely expected to do so.

While the NBA world wonders whether or not James will take his talents to Hollywood or re-sign with the Cavs, few believe that he’ll stay in the land. However, those are fans who most will have forgotten that James is on a quest to be the first billionaire basketball player and the gifted businessman that he is, James has sought to maximize his earning potential since returning to Cleveland. As a result, he signed a series of max deals with player options in the final year so that in the event the salary cap raises, he can cash in.

Fans will also have forgotten that in 2016, James was seemingly willing to sign a five-year contract with the Cavs that would have paid him $200 million. However, due to the previous CBA’s Over-36 rule, the then 31-year-old James was unable to sign a five-year deal because he would have been 36-years-old when the deal expired.

Now that rule has been changed to the Over-38 rule, which James helped negotiate as the vice president of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA).

As a result, next summer the 32-year-old James can sign a four-year deal that would pay him close to $150 million (with a salary cap around $100 million next season and annual 8.0 percent raises to the approximate $35 million James would make in the first season of his new contract). Having made a total of $63 million in the past two seasons, James would have made around close to $213 million in the twilight of his career.

An impressive feat of negotiation, intellect and business acumen.

Admittedly, teams with the cap space can of course offer James a max contract. However, those teams won’t be able to offer the 8.0 percent raises James can get with the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have his “Bird Rights” unless James is traded.

Luckily for the Cavs, James’ desire to win championships decreases the likelihood he would sign outright with another team, as teams with enough cap space to sign a player to a max contract are traditionally teams lacking in talent. Next year, those teams will include the Philadelphia 76ers, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Mavericks and Atlanta Hawks.

Furthermore, the Cavs don’t have to trade James if they don’t want to. If they were to trade James in a sign-and-trade, they’d likely ask for talented players and a bevy of first-round picks in return, assets that James would prefer to remain on the team should he choose to play elsewhere.

Will James really leave the Cavs, considering the money he can make in Cleveland, the fact that they still offer him the best chance at winning championships and how he’s revered in The Land?

It’s possible but it’s hard to believe he will.