‘I don’t know what the future holds for me’

LeBron James will spend the next few weeks “recalibrating and talking with my family” before deciding whether to continue his incredible career.

The 41-year-old’s 2025/26 season came to an end last night with the Los Angeles Lakers going down 115-110 to the Oklahoma City Thunder as the defending champions completed a routine 4-0 sweep in the Western Conference semi-finals.

James, the all-time leading scorer in the NBA, scored 24 points, pulled down 12 rebounds and did his utmost to keep the series alive with a superb display.

As he has done in previous years, he will now take some time away and ponder what the future looks like, whether that’s with the Lakers, another NBA team, or retirement.

“I don’t know what the future holds for me, obviously, as it stands right now tonight,” he 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.

“Nobody has any idea what the future holds, and I don’t either. 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 is renown for his hard work that includes getting to the arena five-and-a-half-hours before tip-off and he says the fire still burns within.

He added: “The love of the game is always there. I don’t think that ever goes away.

“The process for me has always been so much more important. For me, if I fell out of the love with the process, I’d probably fall out of love with the game.”

James does his best but cannot prevent Lakers exit

James has been willing to take on a more limited role at the Lakers this season behind Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, averaging 20.9 points per game but stood tall when his two celebrated team-mates suffered injuries.

“For our group to have the moment that we had when Luka goes down with the hamstring and AR [Reaves] goes down with the oblique and we’re staring down the barrel of a play-off 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.”

If last night was his final appearance, he went out in typically determined fashion, attempting to take the series to a Game Five. 

“I left everything I could out on the floor,” James said. “I controlled what I could control and I can leave the floor saying, even though I hate losing, I was locked in on what we needed to do. I tried to make sure our guys were locked in on what we needed to do throughout the postseason and obviously we fell a little short. But I’m not looking at my year as a disappointment, that’s for damn sure.”

SGA hails James

If James is the past, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the future. The reigning NBA MVP scored 35 points for the Thunder but remains in awe of a player that just completed his record 23rd season.

“It’s amazing what he’s doing out there at this age,” 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.”