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LOS ANGELES — LeBron 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 Monday night was the final game of his NBA career.
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 postseason defeat.
He hasn't ruled out retirement or a return to the Lakers, and he said nothing about the possibility of moving to another team as he contemplates an unprecedented 24th NBA season.
"I don't know what the future holds for me, obviously, as it stands right now tonight," the 41-year-old James said. "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."
James' 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. 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.
"It's amazing what he's doing out there at this age," Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. "It's very impressive. It's hard to put it to 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. 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. I'm not sure we'll see anything like that again, his longevity and his greatness."
James has played in more games, won more games, scored more points and taken more shots than everybody else who ever put on a uniform, but he has never put a limit on his time in the game.
Instead, he repeated his oft-stated declarations that he'll figure it out with his family over a few glasses of wine in the next couple of months.
"Nobody has any idea what the future holds, and I don't either," James said. "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."
James showed only marginal signs of age's encroachment in his 23rd season, continuing to play versatile basketball at an elite level throughout the Lakers' successful regular season.
Injuries forced his largest compromises: He missed training camp and the first 14 games of the season with sciatica, and he missed eight additional games during the regular season, eliminating him from consideration for inclusion on the All-NBA teams for the 22nd consecutive time.
With Doncic winning the NBA scoring title and Reaves emerging as a legitimate top-level NBA scorer, James willingly assumed a supporting role as the No. 3 option in the Lakers' offense — and it worked.
His 20.9 points per game were his fewest since his rookie season, largely because his 3-point shooting accuracy declined to 31.7%, and his 33.2 minutes per game were his fewest ever. Yet he contributed 7.2 assists and 6.1 rebounds with another season of steady performances — and when the Lakers needed him to step up, he did it repeatedly.
"It was so many different seasons in one season with our ballclub," James said. "Obviously injuries played a big part in it, but as far as our identity, I thought it was super-resilient."
James was chosen for the All-Star Game for the 22nd time, and right before the midseason break, he became the oldest player in NBA history to record a triple-double. He surpassed Robert Parish's record for the most regular-season games played in late March.
The Lakers picked up steam down the stretch in the regular season, winning 16 of 18 heading into April and kindling hope of being a dark-horse candidate to give trouble to the Thunder or Spurs in the playoffs. But that's when Doncic and Reaves both incurred major injuries, sidelining both indefinitely.
James handled the disappointment by stepping up and coolly taking charge of the Lakers' offense again. While nearly every NBA observer wrote off Los Angeles' chances of any playoff run, James and his supporting cast improbably knocked off the fifth-seeded Houston Rockets in six games in the first round, sending the Lakers into the second round for only the second time since 2020.
"For our group to have the moment that we had when Luka goes down with the hamstring and AR goes down with the oblique and we're staring down the barrel of a playoff series with Houston, I thought our guys responded and were just super-resilient," James said. "To win that series was big-time for the group that went out there."
James' reasons to prolong his career in Los Angeles would be multifold.
He has spent the past two seasons playing alongside Bronny James, his oldest son and a backup guard for the Lakers. They even got significant playoff minutes together this season, allowing LeBron to live another dream.
His family loves living in Southern California — and while his sons are both out of the family home, he has spoken frequently of his desire to watch the progress of his 11-year-old daughter, Zhuri, a competitive volleyball player.
And the Lakers' outstanding play down the stretch suggested they could be among the NBA's best teams with full health for Doncic, James and Reaves — who is expected to sign a massive contract to stay with the Lakers this summer.
Whether the Lakers can actually contend for a championship next season will be one factor that James must weigh, but finding a true title contender to join at this stage of his career would be difficult even if the Thunder and the rising San Antonio Spurs didn't appear to be head and shoulders above the rest of the league.
For now, James will take time off to enjoy life away from the daily grind that has allowed his career to reach unprecedented lengths — and if he decides not to come back, he doesn't appear to have regrets about how this season ended."
"I left everything I could on the floor," James said. "I control what I can control, and I can leave the floor saying even though I hate losing, I was locked in on what we needed to do."
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