FA: Lebron Returns to LAL | 2yrs/101.5mil

[F Gump]

Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn)
There’s still a conversation with agent Rich Paul and Lakers on James taking $1 million or so below max to keep team below second-apron and able to keep a little more roster-building flexibility, source tells ESPN.

 
With full max to LBJ, LA was going to be about 0.8M over Apron 2 (which punishes a team) before that ridiculous Bronny deal jumped them to about 1.9M over the apron. So I bet they had already negotiated LBJ's down a bit to cover that problem, then agreed to guarantee Bronny for multiple years if LBJ would take even less.

I'm looking for LBJ to take about 2.5-3M less than his max, which will be discreetly offset by that gratuitous 5.42M in guaranteed money to Bronny.