Until LeBron James directly tells everyone when he plans on retiring, it’s just a bunch of speculation on the matter. Some have speculated that maybe this season will be his last, given he’s playing on the final year of his contract. Though that could just mean his tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers is over, and he’ll move on to a different team next season. There was a point in time where many thought he’d retire once his eldest son, Bronny James, made it to the NBA, which happened last season when the Lakers drafted him in the second round.
No one other than James knows when he’ll decide to finish his Hall of Fame career, but at media day on Monday, he at least informed everyone what he’s not waiting on.
“I’m not waiting on Bryce, I don’t know what his timeline is, he’s his own young man,” James said on the possibility of waiting to retire until his youngest son enters the league. “We’ll see what happens this year, next year, but he has his own timeline, I got my timeline, and I don’t know if they quite match up.”
Bryce is a freshman on Arizona’s men’s basketball team, and entered college as a three-star shooting guard. However, he’s expected to take more time to develop than the lone season Bronny spent at USC, which could mean he’s in college for multiple years. Unless Bryce completely shocks people this season, it’s unlikely he’ll be throwing his name in the ring for the 2026 NBA Draft.
While Bryce’s collegiate timeline is unknown, at least we now know that the patriarch of the James family isn’t really motivated to wait until his youngest son reaches the league. It was already expected that James would retire in the next couple years, but now it seems more certain that it could come soon-ish.
James will enter his record breaking 23rd NBA season, breaking a tie between him and Vince Carter for most seasons played. While there’s speculation that this could be his last, it would be surprising for the four-time champion to not make a formal announcement ahead of the season to let everyone know this will be his last dance. James is a showman, so unless he plans on announcing between now and when the regular season tips that this will be his finale, I’d imagine we’ve got at the very least two more seasons of the league’s all-time leading scorer dazzling us with his talents.