Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr seems, at least in jest, to have the answer to the question currently stalling the last moves of NBA free agency.
Where will LeBron James sign to play next season?
In a video posted to X, fans caught Kerr in his car and asked him to sign James. A reunion between James and his Team USA coach and teammate — and longtime rivals — in Kerr and Stephen Curry at Golden State has long been rumored.
“Oh, we got him,” Kerr said.
“Put that on Twitter,” the four-time, championship-winning coach (and five-time champion as a player) said before smiling, laughing, waving at the camera and driving off.
Steve Kerr to a Warriors fan asking for them to sign LeBron James:
“Oh we got him.”
(via @warriorsworld, h/t @TheWarriorsTalk) pic.twitter.com/I5uAucZd7F
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) July 16, 2026
To several Warriors officials, who verified that it was indeed Kerr in the video shot Tuesday and not an AI fake, the veteran coach was just doing what he has always done, using his humor to answer a question from a fan that the Warriors, and the rest of the NBA, still don’t have an answer for themselves. The Warriors remain hopeful that James may eventually choose to play for them, but in this particular instance, Kerr was just using his same quick-witted humor for this viral exchange.
On June 30, James, 41, announced he would return to the NBA for his 24th season but would end his eight-year tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers and sign with a different team. As an unrestricted free agent, James officially opened the sweepstakes for his services for the first time since he left the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Lakers in 2018.
Really, though, it marks the first time since 2010 that there’s been a truly open market for the services of the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. That summer, he made “The Decision” to take his talents from Cleveland to the Miami Heat.
On July 3, Rich Paul, James’ longtime agent and the Klutch Sports Group CEO, appeared on his podcast with Max Kellerman and outlined (he literally drew it on a whiteboard) the true contenders to land James. The teams were the Warriors, Cavaliers, Philadelphia 76ers, Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks.
The four-time champion’s connections to Golden State are deeply rooted. He spent four consecutive seasons in Cleveland battling the Warriors in the NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018, going 1-3 in those matchups.
But that one victory, in 2016, was historic.
James has since formed public friendships with Curry and Draymond Green. He attended Green’s wedding and won Olympic gold alongside Curry under Kerr at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In a 2022 clip from James’ HBO show “The Shop,” he was asked which player he’d most like to team up with in today’s game.
“Steph Curry is the one that I want to play with for sure in today’s game,” James said.
Curry was asked Thursday what his recruiting pitch to James would be while playing in the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nev.
“So the pitch is: Do you want to play good basketball and be around people who know how to play the game?” Curry told reporters. “Raise our floor, competitiveness. … There’s good golf in the Bay. … We’re an organization that’s been there [winning championships]. He knows that, and that’s really self-explanatory. It’s just a matter of where he sees himself fitting. And at the end of the day, that’s up to him.”
James has yet to announce his decision, leaving several remaining league dominoes — such as James Harden’s contract situation in Cleveland — in limbo.
Any time one of the greatest players the sport has seen changes teams, it becomes a league-altering moment that can reshape franchises’ timelines and championship aspirations.
A serious basketball matter.
Perhaps just not serious enough for Kerr to resist joking that the job is already done and the player is secured.
Or maybe he wasn’t kidding.
