{"id":472237,"date":"2026-02-13T11:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/472237\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T11:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:06:07","slug":"lakers-lebron-james-addresses-retirement-rumors-after-record-setting-performance-vs-mavericks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/472237\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers’ LeBron James addresses retirement rumors after record-setting performance vs. Mavericks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lakers’ LeBron James addresses retirement rumors after record-setting performance vs. Mavericks<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> came into the season with a three-headed monster of LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and Austin Reaves. However, there was some confusion this summer when the possibility of James being traded was actually discussed. All James wants is to play for a team that is going to contend.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cLeBron wants to compete for a championship,\u201d Rich Paul told ESPN. \u201cHe knows the Lakers are building for the future. He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all. We are very appreciative of the partnership that we’ve had for eight years with Jeanie [Buss] and Rob [Pelinka] and consider the Lakers as a critical part of his career.\u201d<\/p>\n

After their loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>, James opened up about what is holding the Lakers back from being a championship team.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want me to compare us to them? That’s a championship team right there. We’re not. We can’t sustain energy and effort for 48 minutes and they can. That’s why they won a championship,\u201d James told the media.<\/a><\/p>\n

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On Thursday, James posted his first triple-double of the season against the Dallas Mavericks<\/a>. Looking like his younger self, the media had to ask him questions along the lines of retirement. James didn\u2019t hold back when talking about his ability but mentioned what will always be the determining factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy game is not going anywhere \u2026 I don’t think my game will ever suffer if I decided to continue to go, however long that is. I just think it has to be [my mind]: how long can I stay in love with the process?\u201d James said.<\/a><\/p>\n

The truth of the matter is that James\u2019 body will eventually reach a point where he can\u2019t go every day. That is the day he will hang it up for good. However, on Thursday night, James was once again making his spot in the record books.<\/a><\/p>\n

James has had a storied career\u2014no one will ever deny that\u2014but all good things must come to an end at some point. There is no doubt that James is starting to come to that realization rather quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lakers’ LeBron James addresses retirement rumors after record-setting performance vs. Mavericks originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[45842,49,48,58214,2695,2327,8231,12887,459,3555,82],"class_list":["post-472237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-austin-reaves","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-championship-team","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}