JAMES DISCUSSES RETIREMENT AFTER LAKERS' PLAYOFF EXIT
Desire to play with son may affect choice to continue career,
His 20th NBA season just complete, LeBron James has suggested he would consider the possibility of retirement rather than returning for the Los Angeles Lakers' 2023-24 season.
James, 38, whose Lakers were swept out of the Western Conference final by the Denver Nuggets, made it clear he would be mulling his options as Los Angeles faces costly summer negotiations with key players, including Austin Reaves, D'Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura.
“We'll see,” James said cryptically. “We'll see. We'll see what happens going forward. I don't know. I don't know. I've got a lot to think about, to be honest.”
Though the Lakers reached the West final after missing the 2022 playoffs and opening this season with a 2-10 record, James said he was left unsatisfied by the “pretty cool ride” because it didn't lead to the fifth championship of his career.
“I don't like to say it's a successful year because I don't play for anything besides winning championships at this point in my career,” he said. “I don't get a kick out of making a conference (final) appearance. I've done it a lot, and it's not fun to me to not be able to be a part of getting to the finals.”
James, a 19-time all-star and the NBA's all-time leading scorer, has reached the conference final 12 times, played in the NBA final 10 times and won four titles. He has won one title and missed the playoffs twice in his five seasons with the Lakers, and he remains two championships shy of the six won by Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan.
There's little question James remains one of the league's best players, even though he has logged more than 65,000 minutes in the regular season and playoffs combined during his career. James earned all-NBA third-team honours during the regular season and averaged 24.5 points, 9.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game in the 2023 playoffs.
James scored a game-high 40 points in the Lakers' 113-111 Game 4 loss to the Nuggets on Monday. Despite playing his best overall game of this playoff run, James missed two potential game-tying shots in the final minute as the Nuggets reached the NBA final for the first time in franchise history.
At several points this season, James said that his decision to continue playing basketball would be determined by whether his “mind stays in it,” rather than concerns about physical wear and tear or his advancing age.
“I haven't begun to even think about next year,” James said Monday. “We had a great run but we fell short of our goal. Our goal is to win championships. That's what this franchise is about and we fell short of that. That's disappointing.”
However, the four-time MVP has long expressed a desire to play with his 18-year-old son Bronny, who committed to the University of Southern California. Bronny James will be a freshman next season and will be eligible for the 2024 NBA draft.
To fulfil his father-son goal, James would need to play for at least two more seasons. Last August, James signed a contract extension that will pay him an estimated US$46.9 million next season and grants him a $50.7-million player option in 2024-25, meaning he could become an unrestricted free agent in July 2024.
James hasn't been shy about exerting influence on personnel decisions during his tenure in Los Angeles, and skeptics might read his retirement talk as a leverage play to coax the Lakers to spend the money it will take to craft a playoff-calibre supporting cast for next season.
Reaves and Hachimura are restricted free agents who could garner significant offers from other teams, and retaining both while re-signing Russell and filling out the rest of the roster could lead the Lakers into luxury tax territory. In 2021, the Lakers allowed guard Alex Caruso to leave for the Chicago Bulls in free agency due to luxury tax concerns.
Of the eight Lakers who played in Game 4 against the Nuggets, only James and Davis are under contract for next season. In addition to Russell, Reaves and Hachimura, Los Angeles's free agents include Dennis Schröder, Lonnie Walker IV, Troy Brown Jr., Wenyen Gabriel and Tristan Thompson.
James played through a foot injury that nearly required season-ending surgery during the playoffs, and he was less dominant this season than he was during the Lakers' 2020 title run.
However, he remains one of the faces of the NBA, leading the league in both all-star votes and jersey sales this season.