LeBron James’ helicopter trips are sketchy benefits outside of his Sixers contract

LeBron James decided to suit up for the 76ers this season, but that sure doesn’t mean he wants to live in Philadelphia. In fact, he’s going to extraordinary lengths to avoid being there any longer than necessary. News emerged this last week that LeBron has decided to live in New York for the 2026-27 season, commuting to Philly for games and practice. That sounds like a colossal pain on the surface, considering it’s roughly a two-hour trip from city-to-city — but don’t worry, King James isn’t driving, instead he’s taking multiple helicopter trips a week to cut his travel time down to 30 minutes.

This wasteful and frankly ridiculous travel scheme would be one thing if it were on LeBron’s dime, but news that the travel is being paid for by Fanatics raises major questions about how the NBA is allowing a benefit like this. It feels especially hypocritical less than a month after the league announced significant sanctions against the Los Angeles Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer for circumventing the salary cap with improper payments to Kawhi Leonard that exceeded his salary.

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LeBron is making the NBA veteran minimum of $3.87M this season — but these arranged helicopter flights are so numerous and prolific that they might as well be baked into his deal. It was reported on Tuesday that James has taken as many as 12 trips via helicopter in a single week, and while it’s difficult to estimate the value of those flights taken on a privately owned helicopter, the service Blade, which is basically Uber for people who want to ride by helicopter, has a listed price of $4,645 one-way for trips from New York City to Philadelphia. This means LeBron would have racked up over $55,000 on trips alone in one week, and if we estimate he will be taking six trips per week during the regular season (and this still might be on the low side), then his benefit from these flights is tantamount to $668,000.

It’s a far cry from the $28M that Kawhi Leonard was paid under the table by sponsors of the Clippers, but it still rolls up to raise questions about how the NBA will deal, not just with direct payments, but questionable…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/lebron-james-helicopter-trips-sketchy-143258533.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-07 14:32:00

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