LeBron James before 38th birthday amid Lakers struggles
The Los Angeles Lakers star reflected on his career on Wednesday night following a frustrating loss to the Miami Heat, just days before his 38th birthday.
The Lakers — though missing Anthony Davis — have now lost five of their last six and are just 14-21 this season. At the rate they’re going, even making the playoffs is going to be a battle.
While he doesn’t know how long he will keep playing, he’s starting to see the finish line. And as that approaches, he doesn’t want to keep losing.
Now even though he’s thinking about the end of his career, James almost certainly isn’t going to walk away and retire altogether immediately.
He’s said repeatedly that he wants to keep playing until his oldest son, Bronny, reaches the league and that he’d do whatever it takes to play a season with him.
As Bronny can’t enter the NBA until the 2024 draft under the current rules, that means James has a few seasons left.
Outside of their title run in 2020, which was finished inside the NBA’s COVID-19 bubble at Walt Disney World, LeBron’s time in Los Angeles hasn’t been great.
James is now on his third coach in five seasons with the Lakers, and they seem to continuously either struggle to stay healthy or find a winning combination of players.
The Lakers clearly need to start winning. The struggles seem to be getting to James, and Wednesday was a perfect example of why. The Lakers, despite trailing by single digits at halftime at FTX Arena