LeBron James marked his 40th birthday on Monday with a sense of gratitude for his long basketball career and optimism for his future with the Los Angeles Lakers.
When asked how he would know when it’s time to retire, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer gave an honest evaluation of his abilities.
“To be honest, if I really wanted to, I could probably play this game at a high level for about another – weird that I might say this – but about another five or seven years, if I wanted to,” James said. “But I’m not going to do that.”
James has already had one of the longest careers in NBA history, but he knows it’s nearing its end. He has said many times that he won’t continue playing longer than he should, but that moment hasn’t come yet: James is still playing at a high level for the Lakers, who are leading the Pacific Division, with averages of 23.5 points, 9.0 assists, and 7.9 rebounds this season.
“It’s kind of laughable, really, to know where I am, to see where I am still, playing the game at a high level,” James said. “Still being such a young man, but old in the scheme of how many years I’ve got in this profession.
(I) just think back to when I came into the league. That’s like the first thing I thought about. You came in as an 18-year-old kid, and now you’re sitting here as a 40-year-old, a 22-year vet, with a 20-year-old in the NBA as well. It’s pretty cool.”
James is in his 22nd NBA season — more than any player except Vince Carter, who also played 22 seasons. He will join a small group of players who have played after turning 40 when the Lakers face the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night. The Akron, Ohio native brought Cleveland its only major professional sports championship in 2016.
James shared that his milestone birthday hit him with a sense of disbelief. “I had a decade of the 30s, so to just wake up and just be like, ‘Oh shoot, oh damn, you’re 40?’” James said with a grin.
He also felt the passage of time two months ago when he and his son, Bronny, became the first father and son to play together in the NBA.
LeBron is also feeling encouraged by the Lakers’ strong performance this season, which has improved under new coach JJ Redick. Los Angeles made a move to strengthen the team on Sunday, trading D’Angelo Russell to Brooklyn in exchange for veteran defender Dorian Finney-Smith and guard Shake Milton.
“Right now, I think we’re a very good team,” James said. “I think we have a chance to compete with anybody in the league. Are we at a championship level? Can we win a championship right now? No, I don’t think so.
That’s good, because we have so much room to improve, and we also just added two new guys as well. We’ll see how we incorporate those guys. It should be fun as well. But we’ll see. I don’t know if that determines if I stick around longer, because it doesn’t change my career in any sense or fashion.”
James isn’t thinking about anything beyond his time in Los Angeles, where he has made a comfortable life for himself and his family since 2018. He still plans for the Lakers to be his final stop in his legendary career.
“I would love for it to end here,” James said. “That would be the plan. I came here to play the last stage of my career and to finish it off here. But I’m also not silly or too jaded to know the business of the game as well, to know the business of basketball. But I think my relationship with this organization speaks for itself.”
