Hello, Lakers Nation. Welcome in to the Lakersnation.com podcast.

We've got a busy summer for the Los Angeles Lakers, a lot that they're going to have to get into and a lot of decisions that they'll need to make.

I'm Trevor Lane, joined by Ron Gutterman on today's show.

We're going to take a look at the biggest decisions the Lakers have to make this summer.

Ron, how are you doing?

Doing great enjoying some playoff hoops, how are you doing? Doing great, enjoying some

playoff hoops, but I think we got some bigger, bigger fish to fry in L.A.

Enjoying playoff hoops, but not as enjoyable as the Lakers were actually playing. So that is still

disappointing, still stings for sure. But yeah, the Lakers have got a lot to figure out.

If they want to get up to this, the caliber of basketball that I'm seeing played right now,

I look at it, go, yeah, the Lakers are probably a level or two below what some of these teams are doing out there.

So let's get in some of the decisions the Lakers are going to have to make.

If they're going to take this team next season to the point where they are right there in the thick of things

for a title. And I think first and foremost, what they've got to figure out is it's LeBron. It's

really, and it's not even so much the Lakers decision. It's the Brown's decision. What does he

want to do with his contract? He's got a $52.6 million player option on his deal for next year.

Ron, I think one of the things, I've seen a lot of people say, well, the Lakers need to move on from LeBron.

I talked about it on a video I put out yesterday. The Lakers don't actually open up any spending power,

really, about 14 million below the cap or so

if LeBron were to just walk away.

So you're not really going to make a better team next season if you don't have LeBron James.

You just lose LeBron.

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