LeBron James stared his basketball mortality in the face.
His team had been swept in the Western Conference finals the previous spring and his body was showing undeniable signs of age, the mileage mounting while James’ willingness to keep fighting seemed to wane.
“I have a lot to think about, to be honest,” he said the night the Lakers were bounced back in 2023. “Just for me personally going forward with the game of basketball, I have a lot to think about.”
Just over 16 months later, the questions about the future feel like ancient history. With the dawn of his 22nd NBA training camp a day away, James bounced back with energy on Monday. The gray hairs were all wiped from his beard. His oldest son is now his teammate. And the glow of his latest gold medal was nowhere near fading.
“I feel damn good. I had a great summer. I had a great summer,” James reiterated at the team’s media day. “The body responded really well overseas with Team USA. So took care of that. And I kept it up. Even when we stopped playing, I kept it up. So I feel really good physically. Mentally, I feel really good. Really sharp .Very fresh. Looking forward to work tomorrow. Kinda just live in the moment too.
“I don’t want to take this moment for granted. I’ve always kind of never given myself a chance to kind of just, like, you know, I guess, take in the moments.”
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James re-signed with the Lakers this summer, committing to this season with a player option for next year.
The next moments with Bronny James, the Lakers rookie, will be history every time they happen, the first father-son duo that played in the NBA at the same time, but in the same team. They definitely have James excited for the year.
“If we get some opportunities on the floor over the course of the season, obviously that will be fantastic. It will be amazing. And we’ll wait for that moment when it happens and then go from there.”
Bronny, sharing the dais with fellow rookie Dalton Knecht, said the first official day on the job with his father was surreal.
“This is a crazy feeling,” said Bronny. “I actually did my radio [interview] there, just looking at my dad taking pictures. It was like, ‘What’s going on now?’ [That was] literally my thoughts. Just kind of take it all in. Extremely grateful for the opportunity.”
But the other thing that happened this summer – the victory in the Olympics – seems to have James just as fired up for more championship experiences, the lessons of Paris leaving little doubt in his mind.
“It gives you a lot of joy to be able to play the game, play it at a high level, come to work every day, push each other. And for myself individually, going out there at my age, the miles that I have, and being able to play at the level that I played at, it gave me, like, OK, even more of a feeling like, ‘OK. , I do have a lot in the tank. A lot,’” he said. “And I can help a big part of a team win the ultimate and whatever — if it’s gold, or if it’s a Larry O’Brien Trophy, or whatever it is, I can still do it. So that was pretty cool just from an individual standpoint to know that you can be up there with the best players in the world and still be able to have a big part of it.”
The performance of James and Anthony Davis in the Olympics was a sign to some Lakers fans that the duo is more than enough to be a force in the NBA if the pieces around them fit. One of those pieces, D’Angelo Russell, went to Paris to watch his teammates star.
“I thought it was really cool to watch him play at that level. The camaraderie they had was a nice thing, too,” Russell said. “You can see how, what style of play compliments those guys as well. Me, I kind of had an idea during the time I was here, learning how to play with those guys, around those guys and without those guys. So I think just seeing a lot of stars in our league and how they carried themselves on and off the floor, I just picked up a few things as well.”
Russell was one of the biggest surprises of the day, vowing to make more winning plays without the basketball in his hands, even going so far as to apologize for last season while not hiding his excitement for JJ Redick and the Lakers’ new coaching staff.
“I really want to apologize in the sense of showing a lack of professionalism at times. Showing a lack of team-first perception at times. So for me, just maintaining that maturity and that professionalism throughout the year, no matter the ups and downs,” Russell said. “Holding myself more accountable on the defensive end. Obviously, I know I’m capable. But when you get subbed out of the game for an offensive-defensive possession, that shows where your trust is with your coach and your ability.
“So for me, just trying to get that trust with coach defensively. And consistently, I’m going to show up every day, practice games preseason, whatever, knowing that coach has that trust in me as well.”
For Davis, the gold medal holder of the other Lakers, the summer did not change the disdain he perceives from the basketball public, which still does not fully understand his value.
Asked what people don’t appreciate about his game, Davis quickly shot back.
“Every part,” he said.
However, with another coaching change, Davis is once again tasked with expanding his range to the three-point line, a common thread in conversations between Redick and his new players.
“Obviously, we have one of the best shooters to ever play in our head coach, JJ. He’s been working on me all summer about shooting threes,” Davis said. “Even in the Olympics when I make a three, he’ll text me , ‘That’s what I want to see’, things like that.”
The Lakers won’t have their frontcourt filled on Tuesday when they open camp with Christian Wood [knee] and Jarred Vanderbilt [foot] both recovering from offseason procedures. Still, there was plenty of optimism about the journey the Lakers are ready to embark on.
And with James hungry to repeat the feeling of the summer in Paris, who knows?
“I never lose touch with the game of basketball,” he said. “But it felt damn good to play — it felt good to play meaningful basketball.”
On Tuesday, the Lakers try to get back to that — questions about the future plans of their aging star to be answered another time.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
