Ahead of the Western Conference semifinals against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James took some time to reflect on what he’s managed to accomplish at this stage in his career.<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old was forced to take over as the Lakers’ No. 1 option in the first round against the Houston Rockets amid injuries to star guards Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, and he still led Los Angeles to a series win in six games.<\/p>\n
During Tuesday’s episode of the Mind the Game podcast (11:49 mark), James admitted to co-host Steve Nash that he didn’t expect to continue to be this effective this late in his career.<\/p>\n
“I knew I still had a lot left in the tank when I came to this franchise in ’18, but to say that eight years later at 41 I would be leading the team into the postseason and then coming out with a series win, I wouldn’t have guessed that, and I wouldn’t have bet on that,” James said.<\/p>\n
When asked what keeps him motivated in his 23rd season in the NBA, James explained that he hasn’t lost his love for basketball, as he still looks forward to the grind.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s definitely the sport. I have the ability to still inspire, and I have the ability to still play this game at a high level,” James said around the 16:00 mark. “And I still love the process of getting up and putting my body through vigorous rehabs and training sessions and whatever the case may be to try to find the results.”<\/p>\n
James added that playing alongside his son, Bronny, has also helped him stay focused on being at his best, because he has to set an example for the 21-year-old.<\/p>\n
“To be able to have Bronny in the locker room has definitely helped out a lot, as well,” he said. “I have a job to show him what it means to be a professional.”<\/p>\n
James and the Lakers will open their second-round series against the defending NBA champion Thunder on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of the Western Conference semifinals against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-651697","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\/651697","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=651697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}