LOS ANGELES — It seems like an odd time to be talking about retirement with a man who just put together three consecutive triple-doubles and is playing at an All-NBA level.
However, time is always part of the story now with LeBron James – those three consecutive triples set a record for the oldest player ever to accomplish that featdoing it at age 39. That broke LeBron’s old record set at age 34. Next month, LeBron will turn 40, so the question of how much longer he can do it — or how much longer he wants to do it — has come up. .
“It’s the mind,” LeBron said of what will determine when he hangs up his Nikes. “Wherever my mind is, that’s how the rest of my body is going to go, whatever it is. I’m not going to play that long, to be completely honest. One year, two years, whatever the case may be. I said the other night, that I don’t play until the wheels fall off.
“I’m not going to be that guy. I’m not going to be the guy disrespecting the game because I just want to be on the floor.”
LeBron echoes what he’s said before, and what the handful of great athletes who choose when to leave the game have long said (most pro athletes have that choice to leave made for them when teams don’t give them another contract regardless .the player wanting to continue). It’s not the body – especially in the case of LeBron when he took such exceptional care of his – it’s when the player no longer has the desire to put in the work necessary to prepare his body to play. It’s not that said player doesn’t want to play anymore, but he doesn’t want to do what needs to be done to continue playing at that level.
LeBron will get to the end of this season, whenever that is for the Lakers, sit back and think, then make his call. Does he want to do that for season 23? The Lakers will gladly pay him if he wants to come back.
The question is, when does his mind tell him it doesn’t want to anymore? LeBron doesn’t know when that will be, but he feels it’s coming.
