{"id":875132,"date":"2026-08-31T15:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/875132\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T15:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:12:09","slug":"lebron-james-still-cant-forget-los-angeles-as-he-celebrates-major-players-surprise-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/875132\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James still can’t forget Los Angeles as he celebrates major player’s surprise return"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a> may have spent years building his own legacy in Los Angeles, but the Lakers superstar still clearly has plenty of affection for the city’s other sporting icons.<\/p>\n

That was obvious after Aaron Donald<\/a> announced his stunning return to the Los Angeles Rams on a reported one-year, $20 million deal.<\/p>\n

Cocky opponent tries to provoke LeBron James and instantly gets his attention<\/p>\n

Donald celebrated the news on Instagram with a compilation of some of his best moments in a Rams uniform and a simple message.<\/p>\n

“We back”<\/p>\n

James immediately joined the celebration.<\/p>\n

“YESSIR!!!! LFG,” James wrote with several speaking head emojis.<\/p>\n

Aaron Donald’s Rams return gets LeBron James excited<\/p>\n

Donald retired in 2024 after 10 seasons with the Rams, ending what already looked like a complete Hall of Fame career.<\/p>\n

He appeared in 154 regular season games, recording 543 tackles, 111 sacks and 176 tackles for loss while winning three Defensive Player of the Year awards and helping Los Angeles capture Super Bowl LVI.<\/p>\n

Talk of a comeback intensified this summer after the Rams traded with the Cleveland Browns for five-time All-Pro pass rusher Myles Garrett in June.<\/p>\n

Donald was then spotted training at the Rams’ facility last month, adding further fuel to speculation that he was preparing to return.<\/p>\n

Donald knew about comeback for two weeks<\/p>\n

Donald practiced with Los Angeles on Sunday for the first time in two years and admitted afterward that the decision had been taking shape for some time.<\/p>\n

“To be honest with you, it was on and off for a while, but knew this decision about two weeks,” Donald said. “I know the world was saying all types of things and nobody knew what was going on, but I kind of knew for two weeks.”<\/p>\n

He also revealed how closely he remained in contact with coach Sean McVay.<\/p>\n

“But then I talked to Sean every single week, damn near every day, so we stayed in contact. I gave him all my updates, how I was feeling, how things were going so I know he got annoyed with answering all the questions in camp every day, so I felt bad for him at that point.”<\/p>\n

McVay hasn’t yet confirmed whether Donald will be ready for the Rams’ Week 1 game against the San Francisco 49ers in Australia on September 10.<\/p>\n

James, however, clearly doesn’t need any more convincing. Donald is back in Los Angeles, and one of the city’s biggest stars couldn’t be happier about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James may have spent years building his own legacy in Los Angeles, but the Lakers superstar still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-875132","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\/875132","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=875132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}