What's next for LeBron James
Find out here in the Weekend Read as we cover the Topic of the Month in the NBA from every angle
No player in NBA history has hauled his career into a 23rd season.
Leave it to the Los Angeles Lakers' No. 23 to be the first.
LeBron James, at present, is tied with Vince Carter in terms of seasonal longevity at 22 seasons logged in #thisleague. Yet he will soon break that deadlock with Vinsanity. Also: Fifty more regular-season games will put James at 1,612 for his career and nudge him past Robert Parish for the NBA's all-time record.
The belief here is that, yes, James will indeed achieve those milestones in a Lakers jersey.
For nearly a month now, ever since James' agent Rich Paul announced in late June that his most famed client was exercising his 2025-26 player option worth nearly $53 million, few topics have gripped the basketball public like James' future. Without a public word on the matter from LeBron himself, it has nonetheless become a daily question posed almost everywhere you look in the NBA ecosystem: Does he actually want to finish his storied career elsewhere after seven seasons as a Laker?
That's one only James can answer definitively. However …
Based on my own reporting on the matter throughout a hectic July, which featured James' attendance at multiple Lakers summer league games — but not the Mavericks/Lakers showdown pitting Cooper Flagg against LeBron's son Bronny James on July 10 — I have assembled the following compilation of Twenty-Three Things I Believe about what is really happening here.
Filled with lots and lots of analysis and Intel throughout the piece: