{"id":639547,"date":"2026-04-30T01:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639547\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T01:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:37:09","slug":"lebron-james-revealed-post-retirement-plans-for-when-he-leaves-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639547\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James Revealed Post-Retirement Plans For When He Leaves The NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a>, at age 41, is nearing the end of his 23rd NBA season. His future with the Lakers<\/a> and the league is now in question, as he has exceeded all expectations about how long he will play basketball in his professional career.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s senior writer, Dave McMenamin, who mainly covers the Lakers, wrote a deep-dive story on LeBron James, where he combined conversations with the veteran superstar across eight cities when he was on the road with the team.<\/p>\n

In that report, he detailed a conversation with LeBron James from February 1, 2026, where the Lakers\u2019 star directly addressed the subject of retirement when the Lakers were on the road in New York to face the Knicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell yeah. My wife is going to get a lot of f\u2014ing time. I\u2019ve had to sacrifice not being with my wife a lot because I wanted to be the greatest player that ever played this game,\u201d said<\/a> James, on whether he has been thinking of his plans after retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter, I\u2019m going to spend a lot of time with her because I spent the first 11 years of her life, or 12, whenever this s\u2014 is over, 13 \u2014 being away from her. My youngest son is in college. My family deserves all my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, me. I deserve my time, too. Because I\u2019ve dedicated to this sport for so long that I\u2019ll be happy as f\u2014 when it\u2019s all done to get the f\u2014 away and give myself some grace,\u201d James further added.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the subject of retirement has been eating at him as well, and now he seems to be near his breaking point to finally hang up his boots. But yet again, James cleverly left the timeline for this retirement open-ended as he said, \u201cwhen it\u2019s all done,\u201d indicating he may not retire now.<\/p>\n

One would assume that once James retires, he might stick around as an analyst or a broadcaster like other retired players. But James is not even thinking about that, he admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cD-Wade, T-Mac, Melo, all of those guys are different. I don\u2019t really look at any of those guys [as examples to follow]. My journey is going to be my journey,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI respect everything that they all got going on; it\u2019s pretty cool, I love seeing Melo on TV now. He knows the game. I love seeing D-Wade do his thing. But, yeah, I am not really looking at them like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been a lot of speculation<\/a> on what James will have to do to stay in the league after his $52.6 million contract ends following the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

From taking pay cuts to accepting diminished roles<\/a>, at age 41, James will also have to consider the dynamics of his circumstances<\/a> if he decides to extend his contract or join another team instead of retiring.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s truly a luxury to have a player like James on your team. Even with the Lakers, he has proven to be a solid third option for scoring behind Luka Doncic<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a>, while managing to step up at a time when both those star players ahead of him are injured.<\/p>\n

James and the Lakers managed to go 3-1 against the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, which was a series that no one initially expected them to dominate. The 41-year-old is averaging 21.5 points, 8.8 assists, and 8.3 rebounds while going 43.9% from the field and 36.8% from the three-point range in the first four games of that series so far.<\/p>\n

Hence, it is easy to argue that James still has what it takes to contribute to a winning team, and it\u2019s all a matter of how long the flame inside James sustains him to keep going for the love of the game. But his words increasingly show that father time may actually be catching up with him, and retirement is around the corner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James, at age 41, is nearing the end of his 23rd NBA season. His future with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-639547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}