{"id":805575,"date":"2026-07-16T12:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/805575\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T12:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:03:10","slug":"lebron-james-scheduled-to-speak-thursday-at-fanatics-fest-in-nyc-as-nba-waits-to-hear-his-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/805575\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James scheduled to speak Thursday at Fanatics Fest in NYC, as NBA waits to hear his plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/player\/lebron-james\/214152\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/player\/lebron-james\/214152\" target=\"_blank\">LeBron James<\/a> may be ready to shed some light on his future plans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The NBA\u2019s career scoring king \u2014 and free agent \u2014 is scheduled to speak publicly Thursday afternoon, meaning it\u2019s possible that James will be revealing where he plans to play this coming season or at least give some updates on where he is in the decision-making process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">James will be recording an episode of his \u201cMind the Game\u201d podcast alongside guest co-host <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/player\/tyrese-haliburton\/1132825\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/player\/tyrese-haliburton\/1132825\" target=\"_blank\">Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/team-page\/indiana-pacers\/11\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/team-page\/indiana-pacers\/11\" target=\"_blank\">Indiana Pacers<\/a> in New York on the opening day of Fanatics Fest, a four-day event featuring dozens of athletes, celebrities and sports legends. Single-day general admission tickets are sold out, organizers said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">That appearance has been planned for months; it was announced publicly in May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">James is the NBA\u2019s oldest active player at 41 and the only player in league history to have a career spanning 23 seasons; this coming season will be his 24th. Speculation has been rampant for more than two months about his future, officially starting in May when the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/team-page\/los-angeles-lakers\/13\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/team-page\/los-angeles-lakers\/13\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> were eliminated from the NBA playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">At that time, James said he didn\u2019t know what he would be doing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">And the only developments that he\u2019s revealed since came on June 30, when he said he would play this coming season and that he was leaving the Lakers after an eight-season run highlighted by the 2020 NBA title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">For more than two weeks, the NBA has been waiting to hear what comes next.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">James\u2019 resume is beyond compare in NBA history. He\u2019s a 22-time All-Star, a 21-time All-NBA selection, a four-time Most Valuable Player, a four-time NBA Finals MVP, a three-time All-Star Game MVP, and was a member of the NBA\u2019s 75th anniversary team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He\u2019s also coming off a season where he averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game. For his career, he\u2019s averaged 26.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 7.4 assists in more than 1,600 games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The podcast is the first of two known speaking engagements for James in New York on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He\u2019s also planning to appear at the Game Plan Summit, an invitation-only event presented by CNBC and Boardroom. James is slated to have a conversation with Boardroom co-founder Rich Kleiman \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/player\/kevin-durant\/329525\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nba\/player\/kevin-durant\/329525\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Durant<\/a>\u2019s longtime business partner \u2014 about \u201chow he\u2019s built an empire beyond basketball, what\u2019s ahead for him in business, and why the next generation of athletes is poised to wield more influence than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">James started his career in Cleveland in 2003 and spent seven seasons with the Cavaliers before heading to Miami for four seasons \u2014 where he won his first two titles. He then returned to Cleveland for four more seasons, leaving in 2018 to start an eight-season run with the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Cleveland and Miami are believed to be on James\u2019 radar again as he weighs this decision, as are several other teams including Philadelphia, Minnesota and Golden State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Reynolds reported from Miami.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Stephen Whyno And Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 LeBron James may be ready to shed some light on his future plans. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-805575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805575","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=805575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}