![\"Shai](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/22f2d606864526c909d193972ca5b065.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nLeBron James says he has no idea whether his 24-point performance in the Los Angeles Lakers’ season-ending playoff loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday AEST was the final game of his NBA career.<\/p>\n
The top scorer in league history stuck to the strategy he has taken into the past several summers when he declined to announce his future immediately after the Lakers’ final post-season defeat.<\/p>\n
He has not ruled out retirement or a return to the Lakers, and he said nothing about moving to another team as he contemplates an unprecedented 24th NBA season.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know what the future holds for me, obviously, as it stands right now tonight,” the 41-year-old James said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got a lot of time now. I think I said it last year after we lost to Minnesota. I’ll go back and recalibrate with my family, and talk with them, and spend some time with them, and then obviously when the time comes, you guys will know what I decide to do.”<\/p>\n
James’s record 23rd season ended with a heartbreaking 115-110 loss, completing a four-game sweep of the short-handed Lakers by the defending NBA champions.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles began the playoffs without NBA scoring champ Luka Doncic and second-leading scorer Austin Reaves due to injury, yet James led the Lakers to a first-round upset of Houston before running into the league’s best team in the second round.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) scored 35 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder sealed a 4-0 sweep of the Lakers. (Getty Images\/Los Angeles Times: Robert Gauthier)<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing what he’s doing out there at this age,” Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said.<\/p>\n
“It’s very impressive. It’s hard to put it into words. He’s not very old in the grand scheme of life, but for the NBA, he’s pretty old, and he doesn’t seem like it out there.<\/p>\n
“He was a force. He was the top of the scouting report all series. His size gave us issues at times. He was impressive out there.<\/p>\n
“I’m not sure we’ll see anything like that again, his longevity and his greatness.”<\/p>\n
James has played in more games, won more games, scored more points and taken more shots than everybody else who has ever put on a uniform, but he has never put a limit on his time in the game.<\/p>\n
Instead, he repeated his oft-stated declarations that he will figure it out with his family over a few glasses of wine in the next couple of months.<\/p>\n
“Nobody has any idea what the future holds, and I don’t either,” James said.<\/p>\n
“I’ll take time to recalibrate and look over the season and see what’s best for my future, and when I get to that point, everyone will know.”<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James says he has no idea whether his 24-point performance in the Los Angeles Lakers’ season-ending playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,726,7896,7232,590,5548,285926,85],"class_list":["post-665860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-play-offs","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665860","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=665860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}