[Shelburne] The Lakers Had A Meeting Last Summer With Luka Doncic That Mapped Out The 2026 Offseason, LeBron James wasn’t In Those Plans. “At that meeting they laid out their plans… in those plans, they did not include LeBron James.”
Like it could’ve happened, but I don’t believe anything Shelburne says.
She got kicked out of the Lakers sources years ago and became a Clippers shill.
She just happens to spill this tea now? And it’s not even definitive, just more contextual speculative crap.
Yeah, this is just to try to improve her relevance.
She just happens to spill this tea now?
Shelburne and Windhorst reported this a year ago.
Of course, the timing of the report is just your excuse to not believe it, so that won’t actually matter.
Idk, with her supposed reputation and Windhorst’s confirmed reliability…
This kinda just looks like getting an A on the group project while contributing little to nothing.
I have no horse in this race though so 🤷🏿♂️
That article doesnt say LeBron wasn’t included in their plans.
The purpose of the meeting was as clear as their choice of door: Doncic is the face of the franchise now, and the Lakers wanted him – and everyone else – to know it. Over a bottle of Opus One, Pelinka and Redick explained not only their strategy in building the team around Doncic’s skill set, sources told ESPN, but also the complexities of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement and how they planned to navigate them. That exquisite bottle of wine might have helped Doncic digest Pelinka’s explanation of arcane topics such as the second apron, the value of preserving salary cap space to help acquire an age-appropriate star alongside of him and what remained of the Lakers’ draft assets. Pelinka had made it a working dinner, toting in a thick binder. That binder, with those offseason Lakers plans and longer-range strategies and dreams, used to be presented to James at meetings like these. On the agenda, the concepts of chasing players the team eventually landed – such as Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook – and those they ultimately didn’t. … As the party exited out the front door, the franchise unofficially made that message public: It is ready to usher in the Luka Doncic era in Los Angeles, even if that means sunsetting the LeBron James one. … The Lakers had already made their statement in not offering James a contract beyond this season. It was abundantly clear that the 21-time All-Star’s time as the face of the Lakers had, for the first time, a planned end date, even if James’ record-setting NBA career did not yet. Whether the 2025-26 season is to be James’ final season in the NBA is up to him. But if he wanted the kind of Hollywood ending that only the Lakers can give legends of the game, the release date was set. Spring 2026. Luka Doncic in, LeBron James out. The Lakers would of course celebrate him the way they did Kobe Bryant on his retirement tour back in 2016, if that’s what James ultimately decided. But for the first time in his 23-year NBA career, a team had not begged or borrowed against its future to do everything it could to keep James beyond his current contract. THE LAKERS’ POSTURE did not come as a surprise to James, sources said. But it also did not go down easily.
The purpose of the meeting was as clear as their choice of door: Doncic is the face of the franchise now, and the Lakers wanted him – and everyone else – to know it.
Over a bottle of Opus One, Pelinka and Redick explained not only their strategy in building the team around Doncic’s skill set, sources told ESPN, but also the complexities of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement and how they planned to navigate them.
That exquisite bottle of wine might have helped Doncic digest Pelinka’s explanation of arcane topics such as the second apron, the value of preserving salary cap space to help acquire an age-appropriate star alongside of him and what remained of the Lakers’ draft assets. Pelinka had made it a working dinner, toting in a thick binder.
That binder, with those offseason Lakers plans and longer-range strategies and dreams, used to be presented to James at meetings like these. On the agenda, the concepts of chasing players the team eventually landed – such as Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook – and those they ultimately didn’t.
…
As the party exited out the front door, the franchise unofficially made that message public: It is ready to usher in the Luka Doncic era in Los Angeles, even if that means sunsetting the LeBron James one.
The Lakers had already made their statement in not offering James a contract beyond this season. It was abundantly clear that the 21-time All-Star’s time as the face of the Lakers had, for the first time, a planned end date, even if James’ record-setting NBA career did not yet.
Whether the 2025-26 season is to be James’ final season in the NBA is up to him. But if he wanted the kind of Hollywood ending that only the Lakers can give legends of the game, the release date was set.
Spring 2026.
Luka Doncic in, LeBron James out.
The Lakers would of course celebrate him the way they did Kobe Bryant on his retirement tour back in 2016, if that’s what James ultimately decided.
But for the first time in his 23-year NBA career, a team had not begged or borrowed against its future to do everything it could to keep James beyond his current contract.
THE LAKERS’ POSTURE did not come as a surprise to James, sources said. But it also did not go down easily.
That is purely the authors opinion. No where does the article say anything about who was in the plans presented and who wasn’t.
I’m so sorry this is happening to you.
sure thing top 1% commenter with no flair
Shut up Ramona
Laker fans are world champions of cope
I mean, I appreciate the context. Don’t have to get so snippy haha, I was going off of the fact that this was posted today. Not everyone keeps tabs on the ESPN talking heads like you lmao
Did you read your own comment lol you were pretty snippy yourself
Why did you get snippy about her credibility lol, you can dish it but can’t take it?
She did a fluff interview with balmer for PR immediately after Kawhi-tree-gate. So she has no self respect. And it is well known she’s been kicked out of the lakers sphere for years, so she has no source either.
So yea she has little to no credibility when it comes to lakers stuff
Is her credibility not questionable in this situation? Y’all like to complain about the media talking about the Lakers 24⁄7, but when it’s something like this all of a sudden you defend these click-baity reporters. Funny how that works.
Who me? I never said that. And also no it’s obviously not as questionable as you thought.
she conducted the Ballmer PR softball interview to deny the aspiration shit. She’s as questionable as it gets dude
I’m just saying she’s right in this case. Call it broken clock or whatever but blindly claiming this story as false when it’s been brewing for a year is being just as uncredible as you’re claiming she is.
Nah, Ramona has had zero sources with the Lakers for a while now. Jeanie and her used to be close, but they had a falling out, and Jeanie cut her out of the org.
She’s been a Clippers insider instead.
It honestly makes sense, because why would the team predict whether or not LeBron would retire? Even LeBron didn’t know at the time.
It also makes sense that they were pitching Doncic on how much cap space they’d have, and ignoring LeBron potentially still being there increases the cap space.
Shelburne, Buha, and Irwin.
All “Laker journalists” who have “sources”
Buha is literally in the lakers press room and practices. Idk why he keeps getting tossed with those others
He also just says his opinions or what he would do in a situation and then he gets aggregated and posted on here or the Lakers sub out of context as if it’s reporting. Any fuel to dunk on the Lakers I guess.
Name me something Buha ever broke.
Chill on Buha, he’s cool
This is hilarious cope.
All of those journalists very obviously do have sources. Fans pretend those sources don’t exist solely because they don’t like what’s being reported.
I don’t think anyone is saying they don’t have sources. They’re saying they don’t have sources with a particular team.
Buha and Irwin are Lakers reporters. Of course their sources are with the Lakers and their players.
Shelburne has been an LA reporter for 25 years and was famously close with Buss and the Rambii.
That’s cool. I was responding to that particular comment.
Why are you lot so comfortable acting like you know more about their sourcing than their employers do
The same reason you lot trust them just because they’re on tv.
Trust her more than some dweeb on reddit whose only standing is that they make 50 posts a day. Please get real.
I mean. I didn’t state anything you should believe in. You making up shit to act indignant over? That’s cute.
You think reporters just get on TV and lie. That is stupid.
She’s an insider employed by ESPN.
Yes she is. And it’s stupid to think that the biggest sports broadcaster in America is putting people on TV to tell blatant lies.
Are you saying there’s never been a player call out an insider who’s never spoken with anyone in said camp?
On the flip side, it would have been idiotic to include Lebron in those plans given his age and uncertainty about when he was planning to retire.
It would be dumb to not have a plan that includes him. That’s the point of plans… you make multiple to navigate the unknown
agreed on that. if you read the article from last year, they had a meeting without Lebron and was discussing how they were gonna build a team around Luka.
the part about Lebron not being in their plans seems like conjecture. it’s quite the stretch to go from “Luka is the face of the franchise now” to “We don’t have any plans involving Lebron” https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1lxafzd/windhorst_pelinka_and_redick_explained_their/
All she does is gossip. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say anything about an actual game of basketball
That’s how she got her fame.
After her televised ballmer circle jerk she should never been taken seriously
She was right
Sounds like you’re coping, honestly
They admit that it could’ve happened but that the person saying it is unreliable. Are you defending Ramona for some strange reason?
People are saying reporters just get on TV and lie … for some strange reason
kills me that this women got to keep her job after that bullshit balmer interview.
I honestly think her willingness to do that “interview” is why she has her job. Anyone with credibility wouldn’t have done a PR stunt like that, especially when there was obviously more to come out.
ESPN has consistently provided cover for Ballmer, so giving up the pretenses of being an actual reporter is an attribute there.
Imagine getting upset that an anchor isn’t an investigative reporter, lol.
I know some of these terms are meaningless in today’s media world, but ESPN calls her a “senior writer” and in her own LinkedIn she notes her skill in “Breaking News and Online Journalism”. She and ESPN certainly try to frame her as someone who should be taken seriously.
I don’t care about her individual role, just that ESPN has decided to pretend Ballmer, Wong, and Kawhi aren’t obviously trying to get around the CBA in such an obvious way, seemingly because they want to be cozy with Ballmer and/or because that’s what the NBA wants them to do.
Well sure ESPN fluffs up their own reporters - but she’s just what they used to call a ‘haircut’ back in the day. Just there to read the prompter.
She used to be a beat reporter for the Lakers, but now that function is pretty limited. But even a beat reporter is not an investigative journalist. The OP expecting someone whose entire career was built on being friendly to institutions to suddenly do a 180 is completely ridiculous and shows a lack of literacy and understanding of how media works.
I don’t know if firing her was a realistic outcome as OP said, and ESPN seemingly had her do the interview because she’s chummy with them, but the idea that an anchor wouldn’t push back if a subject is not answering questions or being purposefully vague is underselling the role of an anchor IMO. Better anchors do that, so whether she’s a journalist or anchor, she did a bad job either way, other than the job of giving cover to Ballmer under the umbrella of the largest sports media brand in the world.
I watched the whole interview recently, and at no point does she ask a question beyond the surface level of the story, and even when she does push it is framed in a way that shifts the focus to Kawhi. Despite Ballmer saying they’ve always done the right thing, she also never brings up the fact that they got caught trying to get money to DeAndre Jordan outside the cap. This doesn’t require any “investigative journalism” digging, as it’s on ESPN’s site.
Anchors used to have the journalistic integrity to call out total bullshit
Peter Jennings is rolling in his grave as to how far low we’ve sunk
We aren’t asking for an investigative reporter.. maybe just don’t do an interview trying to make a billionaire seem like they didn’t circumvent CBA.
We understand it’s access journalism but I still think there’s an ethical line there even in sports.
Why would they fire her for doing what they wanted?
I’m ok with her having a job…calling her a fucking Lakers insider is laughable. She has zero contacts with Lakers.
Source: out of her ass
Since she wrote the hit piece on Jeanie after the Westbrook fiasco, she hasn’t had sources in the Lakers.
The only team she’s an insider for in LA is the one with the fake tree company.
It was even before that. She was going hard at Jeannie when she was taking over for Jim and the Lakers were a bit of a mess. Then she was running her mouth about how rob “forgot about the salary cap” after trading for AD and wouldn’t be able to field a full roster or make room for Kawhi but the clippers were like a well oiled machine comparatively.
Oohhh shit that’s right.
She got cut after 18⁄19, went all in on the Ballmer camp and was spouting shit like the Lakers don’t know what a salary cap is and Pelinka was on his knees begging to undo and redo the AD trade. 8000+ upvotes on r/nba btw
Rightttttt I’m sure the media knows what was discussed 😂
Lakers FO doesn’t leak. No one knows wtf they’re talking about
yeah, but Luka’s camp might have.
Doesn’t leak:
Shams is an agent mouthpiece and that literally reads like an agents report
You think the Lakers leaked this? Yall not very smart.
So only the Lakers FO was present in that meeting? Who was Rob negotiating with, the mirror?
Same thing with the Luka roadmap? Was Luka not there?
That wasn’t the FO. Don’t think Luka’s team are ones to leak either
lmao
Bro thought he found something 😂.
That was released after they had already agreed to the deal
And LeBron ended up being the only one healthy for their playoff run lol
Shelburne and Windhorst will be joining the unemployed once LeBron James retires because he is their whole career
Nah, she’s Balmers mouthpiece too. He’ll keep her employed
Shelburne’s career has nothing to do with LeBron James.
Yeah she’s always been LA gossip, real or imagined, way before LeBron came. That’s always going to have a market.
Isn’t Windy more of a national guy now? Nonetheless, I see him hitching his wagon to Wemby soon.
Yeah included big Mitch and Dean Wade
More like included guys getting bought out exclusively
Why?
Probably because he’s in his 40’s
Probably expected him to retire. So they showed Luka the plan moving forward with him as the main guy and how they’ll build around him.
To convince Doncic that he was the new face of the franchise so that he would sign the extension.
As Windhorst and Shelburne reported last summer:
The purpose of the meeting was as clear as their choice of door: Doncic is the face of the franchise now, and the Lakers wanted him – and everyone else – to know it. Over a bottle of Opus One, Pelinka and Redick explained not only their strategy in building the team around Doncic’s skill set, sources told ESPN, but also the complexities of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement and how they planned to navigate them. That exquisite bottle of wine might have helped Doncic digest Pelinka’s explanation of arcane topics such as the second apron, the value of preserving salary cap space to help acquire an age-appropriate star alongside of him and what remained of the Lakers’ draft assets. Pelinka had made it a working dinner, toting in a thick binder.
He’s heavily declined and in his 40s even in the playoffs his stats were bad it was the roleplayers who showed up and rockets shot like shit. Ayton and smart played insane defence that series too.
Lmao.. you know we all have eyes and watched that series right?
I watched the full series, he’s heavily declined. Doesn’t play defence at all, lousy turnovers, 3pter regression, mid range regression.
Get your eyes checked or learn ball. That’s all I got for you kid
No need to get so emotional
Isn’t this the same lady that said Rob had no idea how the CBA worked and was going to screw up the trade for AD…which resulted in AD coming to LA and winning a ring.
Lebron definitely didn’t hear about this /s
Because Bron to Warriors was a done deal months ago, right when Kerr announced his random 2 year extension.
Shelburne has been a fraud for like 7 years now. Everything she says about Lakers is made up.
Just making shit up
That is such BS lmao
This wide body doesn’t know anything.
what the fuck… luka betrayed the GOAT…
after all he taught him?
Luke betrayed MJ? When??
The Lakers were reportedly quoted as saying “this fuckery won’t go on for much longer”
Source: Trust me bro
Was she in the meeting?
Balmer’s mouth piece talking out of her ass lol
You can’t trust a word Romana Shelburne reports tho.
This has been clear all season. They dont want lebron anymore
I like how the headline here on the post says the exact same thing twice in succession lol
Now this is a reporter you should not believe when it comes to the Lakers
Fair enough
Sources are telling me I was also not included in these plans
LeKnowsWhatTheyDidLastSummer
I don’t think LeBron would care about plans at age 41
Did she go through those plans? Was she recording the entire conversation? Why would someone know this? It sounds like she’s being a mouthpiece for some agency.
either way its best lebron doesnt fit lakers current timeline. he should go on another team where he will work well and can get a ring. lakers should build around Luka and his needs for them to hav a chance in the next few years to be serious title contenders
I bet they had 2 plans one with and one without,as they should because LeBron re-signing wasn’t a guarantee
That way she is not lying but not telling the whole truth
Shelburne doesn’t know anything about the Lakers
Ugh, he’s joining the Warriors just for the most opportunist to mash on the Lakers
I remember this report from last year.
This isn’t a big deal or a shocker!! Why would they include lebron in their long-term plan pitch given his age and uncertainty around his retirement. Not including him wasn’t about not wanting him but rather realizing that was a veritable they couldn’t control thus couldn’t put as part of their future.
LoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogetooooooooofucooookedoooooooooL
They haven’t done anything yet in the offseason
My sources tell me that LeBron parachuted and crash landed into the meeting while Bronny took the elevator but got lost and didn’t get there until it was over.
No, I think it was more like that scene at the end of Oceans 12 where Telour’s disguised as a window cleaner outside of Benedict’s office. Except that was Bronny and Pelinka looked right at him, didn’t recognize him and simply turned back to Luka and said “Look Luka, I can’t say Lebron won’t play again after this season, but what I can tell you, if he does, it won’t be for us!”
I love how she just held onto this info for over a year before delivering it. They get to just make shit up for fun lmao
Pretty sure that this was just a random meeting with Luka where the future came up
It’s so fucking funny looking at this crazy ass woman spewing lie after lie for years 😭
You can’t do PR for one team and then have us believe what you say about another
Credibility is funny that way
Ramona doesn’t know shit. We can start and end there. Go comment on Clippers shit Ramona.
Shelburne has zero Laker sources and is a clippers shill/paid asset.
Disregard.
She just making up stories now. I guess she must have been invited to that meeting and she’s talked with LeBron but lakers haven’t since she knows everything about LeBron and what he’s going to do
Shut up balmer broad.
I really dislike Ramona Shelburne. Nothing authentic about her.
Is it just me or she looks like Shrek in human form?
If the lakers get Duren can’t imagine LeBron won’t resign
Damn once bron retires soo much of the NBA media will be out of a job 😂
Is Ramona pretending to know what’s happening again. Why didn’t she report this last week?
Shelburne the Hutt
She’s a joke. No better than gossip
You can’t trust what she says
Here comes the hit pieces
Me when I’m trying to meet the word count
I was there. I’m there right now.
Lakers are going to be so ass
Those plans did include Lebron James Jr, however
Ramona does not know shit lmao
Who wrote this title? Please dont do it again
You mean max contract 45 year old LeBron isn’t going to help Luka? Shocker
Lying bihhh.
Here comes the revisionist history
Well, good luck with that guys
This dimbo is still out there thinking she can make a career out of negative Laker comments.
shelburne is a snake. accurate or not she is horrible
Dream come true
Is the dream never winning a championship as long as reaves and luka are under contract?
How in the world would she know this? I understand it makes sense to build around Luka, but wasn’t that meeting just between Pelinka, Luka and Luka’s agent? Why would any of the 3 of them leak this? It would just sabotage relationships. This feels made up just for clicks
Just another example of modern day journalism…I really hate the media
so how does the women who had to switch to being a clippers tool.. i mean insider after she had a falling out with jeanie have any idea what the fuck is going on in that building?
Pelinka may be the worst GM of all time but one thing is for sure these past offseasons is that the Lakers don’t leak anything. So every report that says “Lakers did this, that” is not true at all. Plus, Shelburne is paid by Ballmer. She’s notoriously anti-Lakers
Look at MoMo being messy! 😬🤣
Aging superstars may remember this in future years/decisions where they want to win their last ring.
Bullshit. How does she know?
I remember years ago someone said that Shelburne looks like she takes the smelliest shits and it’s stuck with me since then