LeBron James at 40: NBA’s brightest star stares down the dying of the light
IIt’s Christmas Day and a horde of reporters surround a smiling, exhausted LeBron James in the visiting locker room at San Francisco’s Chase Center, minutes after the latest episode in a decades-long catalog of thrilling battles with his friend and foe, Stephen Curry. James is asked, in light of all the recent bickering about the state of the NBA as an entertainment product, what he thinks are the “good things” in the league on any given night. “LeBron and Steph,” he shoots back, grinning. And he’s not wrong. But it’s just a few days after December 30, his 40th birthday, and the Quadraitarian elephant in the room casts a somewhat melancholic shadow over the joy of high-level basketball being played. No one, perhaps not even James, knows exactly how much time remains in his illustrious NBA career. But it’s not much.
Since returning from a still-mysterious nine-day excused absence from the Lakers a few weeks ago, James is once again playing basketball at a high level after a rough patch early in the season. For perhaps the first notable time, James showed flashes of real, clear decline during that stretch, posting his worst shooting numbers since his rookie season more than two decades ago. His recent return to form raises the question of whether that regression was less of a gauge and more of an aberration, perhaps caused by fatigue after a summer of intense (and wildly entertaining) Olympic game on his way to his third gold medal. But coincidence or not, it did shed light on a topic that has hung ominously over every step of James’ trajectory in recent seasons: his impending retirement, which he has repeatedly hinted at sooner or later, and the cavernous hole the size of a premiership that will be left behind if he decides to hang it up.
Even Curry, who at 36 is a few years younger than James, has been reckoning with his basketball mortality lately. He told ESPN’s Malika Andrews during a recent conversation, he said he has been thinking about retirement “more than I probably have before” lately.
He went on to tell Andrews, “It’s okay to accept and acknowledge that the end is near, but only because it allows you to enjoy what’s happening now. But I think the more you talk about it, and the more you acknowledge it, the more it increases the sense of urgency in that moment.”
On balance, both Curry and James are still playing at the 15-20 player level, as evidenced by their Christmas match. But the clock is ticking. If James returns next year to play another season, there is widespread speculation that it will be his last, and that his then 23 seasons will be the most in NBA history, surpassing Vince Carter’s 22 seasons as most ever played. From the fans’ perspective, it’s clearly difficult to balance the gratitude for the time spent on the hardwood for their favorite stars with the looming fear of losing them. And for the stars themselves, an even more difficult balance and an age-old question: when should we hold on and when should we let go?
I asked James’ coach, JJ Redick, once an NBA sharpshooter with a formidable resume of his own, when he knew it was time to hang it up, and how difficult that was, since basketball is such a big part of the sport included. his identity. In particular, he recalled a few moments when it began to dawn on him that the end was approaching.
The first, on New Year’s Eve of what would be his final year in the league, in Dallas, lonely and missing his family (who remained in New York City for the entire season). “[I remember] Calling my parents and just being emotional, and talking to them and saying, “I just want to get in my car and drive back to New York,” and my mom says, “Why not you?” and I said, ‘Because I can’t let it go.’”
Redick also remembered another phone call, the one that made him realize that was the case Real time to call it. “The moment I realized it was over, I was in Dallas, and during that season I had only really seen my family for four or five days, it was three different occasions. And one of them was, they came to Dallas, and Rick [Carlisle, then-head coach of the Mavericks] I got word they were in town for the weekend, we had a Saturday-Sunday back-to-back. So I’m doing a shootaround on Saturday and I’m going back to the apartment, and I’m getting ready to hang out with them. I think we went to the Science Museum or something. And Rick calls me and he says, ‘Hey, I just heard your family is in town. You’re probably not going to play tonight, and I know you haven’t seen them. Why don’t you just take them out to dinner?’ And I said, ‘Rick, you’re real, I appreciate that,’ hung up the phone and started crying. I thought, ‘I’m done. If it’s at this point, I’m done. ”
But LeBron James doesn’t want to let it get to that point: he has always made it clear that he doesn’t want to play well past his prime. The future first-ballot Hall of Famer has no interest in overstaying his welcome, saying multiple times that he doesn’t want to cheat on the game he loves. But he’s in an interesting space, where he’s certainly still much better than most of the competition, still capable of beating the best of the best in any given game, but he’s starting to show the slightest sign of to see the wall. For someone for whom basketball, for all intents and purposes, has been their entire life to live, knowing when to walk away is an almost impossible question.
I recently asked James if, amid all the retirement speculation, he’s had the chance to realize how rare it is to play at the level he has given his age. “I didn’t do that,” he said. “It’s just pretty cool that with the miles I’ve put on the tires and the lack of tread left on them, I’m still able to get up and down the highway, and do it at a high level. .” He spoke about the level of commitment required and echoed his previous sentiments about his desire to walk away before a sharp decline occurs: “I think I’m just trying to give everything to the game outside of the game, before the game even starts , if that’s what makes that feeling. So I arrive five hours before the game and I already start doing everything I can to put myself in a position where I can be the best when the fans are here, when the ball is tipped and everyone is going crazy. I was blessed with an otherworldly ability by the man above from the beginning, and since then I have taken full advantage of it. I wouldn’t despise what he’s given me, and we’ll see how long I can do it. But I won’t do it until the wheels fall off. I’ll tell you. I won’t be one of those guys.”
He is certainly not “one of those guys” yet. Forty years old certainly looks different for James than it does for anyone in NBA history: Taking all the above factors into account, he’s still averaging 23.5 points, 7.9 rebounds and 9.0 this season. 0 assists, an All-Star performance by almost any metric. And while he may not be willing to play “until the wheels fall off,” whenever that may be, LeBron James is taking NBA fans on one hell of a ride as he rides off into the sunset.