Will NBA expansion determine how many more years LeBron James plays?

As soon as the NBA finalizes its new national media rights deals, it will turn its attention to expansion, which could determine how long LeBron James stays in the NBA.

“Media deals, it’s been a long process. It’s ongoing, and we hope to wrap it up in the relative near term, and then we will turn to expansion,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said during the NBA Finals. “But by turning to expansion it doesn’t mean we’re going to announce that now we’re ready to add teams. It means that there will be a committee of NBA governors that will focus on it. There are clearly markets out there that are very interested and will run through a process.”
Among those markets interested — and one of the two clear frontrunners to land a team — is Las Vegas. LeBron has spoken publicly about wanting to be the face of that franchise. However, the NBA has a rule that an owner can’t be an active player on the team, so where would that leave LeBron? How many more years LeBron plays in the NBA could be influenced by that expansion, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said on First Take (hat tip Real GM).

“The biggest thing, other than health, that we’re gonna see that is going to determine when the end of LeBron’s career is when the owners of the league set forth a timeline about when they’re gonna establish that expansion team in Las Vegas. I suspect once the TV rights deals get wrapped up … they’re gonna bring expansion to the table…

“(James) wants to partner with partners to become the face of the franchise in Las Vegas.”

LeBron just signed a two-year, $104 million contract with the Lakers (the second year of that is a player option). That could work well with Lebron joining a group starting an expansion team in Las Vegas—the league will take its time in making this decision.

LeBron is a billionaire but will need to partner with other, wealthier people to pull this off — the expansion fee alone for one of the two expansion teams could be $4 billion (let alone all the other start-up costs). LeBron could be the public face of that team, be involved in the basketball operations (and business side) and add that to his post-career resume.

Nothing is set in stone, but this is something to watch going forward. The league would love to have another star former player in an ownership role, the way Michael Jordan was in Charlotte for many years.