An NBA Finals rematch between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors is the centerpiece of the five-game Christmas Day slate, the league announced Thursday as it revealed the schedule for the 2016-17 season.
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It looks like LeBron James will be staying in Cleveland a bit longer than expected.
“I’m re-signing back with the Cleveland Cavaliers, my hometown team”, James said in a video posted on sports news website Uninterrupted. So let’s get the band back together, And let’s bring home another championship.
“We all know past year (was) magical, inspiring, all the words you can come up with”.
The contract, as first reported Thursday, includes a player’s option worth roughly $36 million in Year 3 of the deal, and will indeed make James the highest-paid player in the National Basketball Association this season at $31 million. Moreover, in the 2017-18 NBA Season, LeBron James will get the heftiest pay in the history of the NBA worth $33 million.
The Cleveland Cavaliers just sealed the deal with LeBron James, who signed for a three-year deal with the Kyrie Irving team, and the JR Smith contract appears to have also reached its final stage.
LeBron James became an unrestricted free agent (again) at the conclusion of this year’s NBA season, after steering the Cleveland Cavaliers to a historic and somewhat unlikely NBA Championship.
J.R. Smith was an integral part of the Cavs’ championship run, and it’s a near-certainty that he will be back with the team in the fall. However, there are also other teams with a bit of salary cap space this offseason that can try to sign him. I’m ecstatic. I can’t wait to see my guys. That is, LeBron James expects a JR Smith contract “done” now. Chances are, he’ll be a free agent at the same time James can opt out. It’s a little more complicated than this, but the “over-36 rule” prevents older players from signing true max deals.
If James plays all three years under the new deal, he will earn $406,504 per regular-season game.
The Los Angeles Lakers will play their first game without the retired Kobe Bryant since 1996 later that night, hosting Houston as new Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni returns to his last coaching stop.
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“Let’s get J.R. done – it’s that time”, he said with a laugh. But this is James’s first contract since returning to Cleveland that locks him in for multiple seasons.
