IF LEBRON IS SERIOUS ABOUT RETIRING, THEN IT’S TIME HE SAYS GOODBYE
With championships in his past, and his mammoth legacy established, James has every reason to watch his son play college ball, make movies, own an NBA team in Vegas … and stop playing after 20 seasons
On the last sequence of his 20th professional season, in his 39th year of life, with his son’s high-school prom photo circulating virally, LeBron James never looked older or more vincible. Barreling toward the basket, he couldn’t prevent Jamal Murray from grabbing the ball, forcing him to muscle up a shot that was blocked by Aaron Gordon as time expired. The missed opportunity to tie the game and avoid a sweep in the Western Conference finals wasn’t surprising.
Not anymore.
In clutch moments, though the name of the agency he started with old friend Rich Paul is called Klutch, LeBron hasn’t been LeBron for a while. Earlier in a series dominated by the Denver Nuggets and a new and different king, Nikola Jokic, James committed senseless turnovers, routinely clanked three-pointers and played suspect defense. What about that blown dunk in the open court in Game 2? He was spectacular in the first half of the clincher and handled Jokic admirably in the second half, yet, even so, there was an overwhelming sense in Crypto.com Arena — The Crypt, in every way on Monday night — that he no longer can will a team toward the NBA Finals.
Rather, he resembled a waning legend whose performance is diminished because, as he has said himself, “Father Time is undefeated.” And after 1,421 regular-season games and 282 playoff games and 68 games in the Olympics, his human body is vulnerable to injury as it nears the Big Four-Oh. No longer an injured-list-defying machine, he heard a pop in his right foot in late February. Grounded by a torn tendon, he was told to have surgery but ignored the advice, preferring to find another doctor — “the LeBron James of feet,” he called him — who said he could rehab the injury and keep playing.
And where did that get him?
It took him to a place none of us wants to see, the netherworld faced by every sports legend as inevitable twilight approaches. Agonizingly and sadly, it took him to a humiliating career juncture where he ceded to a new champion, with barely a challenge …. and suggested he’ll now retire from the game. That’s what the man said during his post-game press conference.
“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,” James said. “I don’t get a kick out of making a conference (finals) 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. But we’ll see. 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.
“Just for me, personally, going forward with the game of basketball, I’ve got a lot to think about.”
An ESPN reporter who followed James out of The Crypt coaxed him to elaborate. Would he walk away from the game this summer? “I got to think about it,” James said.
He dropped the bombs not an hour after Game 4. And having seen him in emotional ruts following other disappointments — remember when he tore off his Cavaliers jersey before taking his talents to South Beach? — I wonder if he’s challenging Jeanie Buss, Rob Pelinka and the Los Angeles Lakers to upgrade a hodgepodge roster and ignore the two-ton baggage that would come with signing his old championship partner, Kyrie Irving. But even with Irving, who could pull any number of team-destructive stunts in Hollywood’s glare, LeBron is finished winning titles.
He has four, only one in his last seven seasons, and that came in an Orlando pandemic bubble that may or may not have actually existed. He will end with those four, which is no disgrace. But his mission to match or one-up Michael Jordan, who won six rings in just 13 Chicago seasons, has evaporated in the marine layer by the Pacific Ocean. LeBron wears No. 6 and used to wear No. 23, but his legacy will fall behind that of Jordan, the fate of every other man who has played in the league. He has hopscotched from Cleveland to Miami to Cleveland to L.A., hunting trophies. Larry O’Brien no longer is cooperating.
So, as the hungry and younger Nuggets eye a potential Western reign with Jokic locked in as the centerpiece, does James really want to keep making the postseason and failing? It was a miracle just to reach the playoffs this time, and any talk-radio whim of landing Luka Doncic or Giannis Antetokounmpo is a pipedream. This is what the Lakers are, as Anthony Davis becomes only more fragile and more maddeningly inconsistent, while hoping a pleasant outlier like Austin Reaves sticks around. Phoenix still has Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, with a new coach and trophy-mad owner. Golden State always will be a factor as long as Stephen Curry is gunning and Steve Kerr is plotting. The Next Big Thing, a 19-year-old from the Paris suburbs, is paired with old soul Gregg Popovich in San Antonio.
Victor Wembanyama is only 10 months older than James’ son, Bronny, who has signed at USC. A proud father would prefer to see his games in person than make road trips to Minneapolis and Memphis. He also might like to take lunch meetings in Beverly Hills and renew his ambitions as a Hollywood content lord. Won’t the league expand to Las Vegas sooner than later? Hasn’t he already said he wants to own the team?
What happened to his goal of playing in the league with Bronny? The only way that can happen is if a team wants his son, who is no sure bet as an NBA prospect. Going home to Cleveland, as a family package, only makes sense in a wild fantasy, as the Cavaliers have moved on with a new core that prefers to forge its own identity. Would the Lakers trade him, with two years and $97.1 million left on his contract? They would, as a way of starting over. But hard as it might be to swallow, who wants LeBron James at this point? Maybe Mark Cuban in Dallas, for a pairing with Doncic. But how would LeBron make all the USC games if he played in Texas? And who says Bronny wants to play with the old man, anyway?
“I've done what I've had to do in this league, and my son is going to take his journey,” James said recently. “And whatever his journey, however his journey lays out, he's going to do what's best for him. And as his dad, and his mom, Savannah, and his brother and sister, we're going to support him in whatever he decides to do. So, just because that's my aspiration or my goal, doesn't mean it's his. And I'm absolutely OK with that.”
These are the reasons James would retire. He’s just not into the grind anymore if there is no reward in the end. He wants his life back. It has been occupied by the world for two-plus decades, right? As he said last month, “If my mind goes, then my body will just be like, 'OK, what are we doing?’ ’’
So, what are we doing as a 21st season arrives in a few months, with a franchise in perpetual flux, in a market where fans grew to admire and cheer him but never will accept him with Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson and other Lakers legends? Will he even command a statue outside the arena? After five seasons as a rent-an-icon in a show-business town, he knows the narrative is nearing its conclusion.
Is that all, folks? His fellow film star, Bugs Bunny, and millions of people across the planet want to know. If LeBron James decides he genuinely has the zest to keep playing, so be it. After all, as he bragged to ESPN, “I’m still better than 90 percent of the NBA. Maybe 95.” But if he harbors real doubts about playing more basketball, as opposed to watching Bronny and making movies and owning a franchise, then roll the final scene.
The End.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.