LeBron James says he has no idea whether his 24-point performance in the Los Angeles Lakers’ season-ending playoff loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night was the final game of his NBA career.
The top scorer in league history stuck to the strategy he has taken into the past several summers when he declined to announce his future immediately after the Lakers’ final postseason defeat.
He hasn’t ruled out retirement or a return to the Lakers and said nothing about the possibility of moving to another team as he contemplates an unprecedented 24th NBA season.
“I don’t know what the future holds for me, obviously, as it stands right now tonight,” the 41-year-old James said. “I’ve got a lot of time now.
“I think I said it last year after we lost to Minnesota. I’ll go back and recalibrate with my family and talk with them and spend some time with them, and then obviously when the time comes, you guys will know what I decide to do.”
James’ record 23rd season ended with a heartbreaking 115-110 loss, completing a four-game sweep of the short-handed Lakers by the defending NBA champions.
Los Angeles began the playoffs without NBA scoring champ Luka Doncic and second-leading scorer Austin Reaves due to injury, yet James led the Lakers to a first-round upset of Houston before running into the league’s best team in the second round.
“It’s amazing what he’s doing out there at this age,” Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said of James. “It’s very impressive. It’s hard to put it to words.
“He’s not very old in the grand scheme of life, but for the NBA, he’s pretty old, and he doesn’t seem like it out there. He was a force. He was the top of the scouting report all series. His size gave us issues at times. He was impressive out there. I’m not sure we’ll see anything like that again, his longevity and his greatness.”
James has played in more games, won more games, scored more points and taken more shots than everybody else who ever pulled on an NBA jersey, but he has never put a limit on his time in the game.
Instead, he repeated his oft-stated declarations that he’ll figure it out with his family over a few glasses of wine in the next couple of months.
“Nobody has any idea what the future holds, and I don’t either,” James said. “I’ll take time to recalibrate and look over the season and see what’s best for my future, and when I get to that point, everyone will know.”
James showed only marginal signs of age’s encroachment in his 23rd season, continuing to play versatile basketball at an elite level throughout the Lakers’ successful regular season.
Injuries forced his largest compromises – he missed training camp and the first 14 games of the season with sciatica, and he missed eight additional games during the regular season, eliminating him from consideration for inclusion on the All-NBA teams for the 22nd consecutive time.
With Doncic winning the NBA scoring title and Reaves emerging as a legitimate top-level NBA scorer, James willingly assumed a supporting role as the No. 3 option in the Lakers’ offense – and it worked.
His 20.9 points per game were his fewest since his rookie season, largely because his three-point shooting accuracy declined to 31.7 per cent and his 33.2 minutes per game were his fewest ever. Yet he contributed 7.2 assists and 6.1 rebounds with another season of steady performances – and when the Lakers needed him to step up, he did it repeatedly.
“It was so many different seasons in one season with our ballclub,” James said. “Obviously injuries played a big part in it, but as far as our identity, I thought it was super-resilient.”
James was chosen for the All-Star Game for the 22nd time, and right before the midseason break, he became the oldest player in NBA history to record a triple-double. He surpassed Robert Parish’s record for the most regular-season games played in late March.
He has spent the past two seasons playing alongside Bronny James, his oldest son and a backup guard for the Lakers. They even got significant playoff minutes together this season, allowing LeBron to live another dream.
“I left everything I could on the floor,” James said. “I control what I can control, and I can leave the floor saying even though I hate losing, I was locked in on what we needed to do.”
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