It's probably the biggest personal achievement of LBJ that he won a national championship for his home state. Like you say they went along time without winning anything. So that is a massive tick off his career objectives. Behind the scenes it's gone very sour between him and the owner so the feeling is that this will be his last season in Cleveland. So for them to get a good future draft pick and Thomas in this trade is fantastic business from them.
The NBA is the same as any other sporting league, there's prestige sides that players want to play for. And despite how terrible they've been in recent season the Lakers are the pinnacle of that. LA want to land LBJ, Paul George and keep Lonzo Ball next season and appeal of that money and being the face of the Lakers will be too much for LBJ to turn down surely. So Cleveland have covered themselves well in this trade. Unlike Boston who have no guarantees Irving will wanna hang around long term anyway. Maybe they got the better player for now. But it's not enough long term.
Nice one, I'll have to have a look out for that show on ESPN.