Gary Payton believes LeBron James will finish his career with the Lakers

INDIANAPOLIS — The basketball world was able to dream — or dread — the thought of longtime rivals LeBron James and Stephen Curry teaming up when the idea was broached by the Golden State Warriors before the trade deadline.

It was quickly rebuffed by the Los Angeles Lakers, who went to James’ agent, Rich Paul, to gauge his interest. But Hall of Famer Gary Payton, an Oakland native and former Laker, doesn’t believe James should leave his kingdom in Los Angeles.

“LeBron did what he wanted — [what] he was supposed to. He said, ‘I’m staying where I’m at,’” Payton told Yahoo Sports right before All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. Payton is slated to be one of the judges for the AT&T Slam Dunk Competition on Saturday night.

“He’s been traveling too many times, been to Cleveland, you know. He been to Miami, went back to Cleveland. This is his last stop, man.”

Payton, of course, played in an era when rivals didn’t link up, at least not while in their absolute primes. Payton and Karl Malone were on opposite ends of the 1996 Western Conference finals, where Payton’s Seattle SuperSonics beat Malone’s Jazz in a thrilling seven-game series, but united eight seasons later in Los Angeles for the Lakers to play alongside Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Malone was 40 at the time; Payton 35.

Gary Payton, chatting with LeBron James in 2019, knows what it’s like to play with the Lakers. (Photo by Harry How/BIG3 via Getty Images)

Both were past their peaks but helped as supporting pieces to Bryant and O’Neal in their last season together. The Lakers advanced to the Finals but fell to the Detroit Pistons in a shocking five-game loss.

The lure of Los Angeles tested Bryant that summer as a free agent, but he re-signed with the Lakers and stayed there for the remainder of his career. Starting with the arrival of Magic Johnson in 1979, the Lakers have only gone without a front-facing superstar for seven years total — five following Johnson’s abrupt 1991 retirement and the two years between Bryant’s 2016 retirement and James’ 2018 arrival.

“LeBron is not going nowhere. L.A. is his city right now, his town,” Payton said. “Kobe is really … it’s Kobe’s city. But LeBron is taking over now.”

Bryant’s statue — the first of three — was revealed Feb. 8 in a ceremony at Crypto.com Arena, further solidifying his legendary status in Los Angeles after his 2020 death.

Payton didn’t see a scenario where James playing alongside Curry would actually fit, basketball-wise. His son, Gary Payton II, is a valuable reserve for the Warriors and a member of the 2022 championship team.

At this point, Golden State and the Lakers would be slated to play each other in the play-in tournament as the ninth and 10th seeds. They were in the inaugural play-in tournament in 2021 and battled in the second round last year. The Lakers advanced both times.

“Golden State would have to give up everybody. So you only would have been playing with [LeBron] and probably Curry,” Payton said. “They’d have to give up their whole team. They would have been only LeBron and Curry.”

To make the money work, Klay Thompson would’ve had to be involved, valuable as an expiring contract. And surely if talks had gained any real traction, the emerging Jonathan Kuminga would’ve been requested by the Lakers as well.

But Payton doesn’t foresee James leaving Anthony Davis or Los Angeles, let alone for the Warriors, a franchise that has been a thorn in his side for nearly a decade.

“And then [Golden State] would have to bring in somebody else,” Payton said. “They would’ve had to throw people in. So I don’t think that would have happened.”