EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) — LeBron James celebrated his 40th birthday on Monday with gratitude for his basketball longevity and optimism about his future with the Los Angeles Lakers.
And when James was asked how he’ll know when it’s finally time to retire, the top scorer in NBA history offered a frank assessment of his still-formidable skills.
“To be honest, if I really wanted to, I could probably play this game at a high level for about another – weird that I might say this – but about another five or seven years, if I wanted to," James said. "But I’m not going to do that.”
James already has one of the longest careers in NBA history, but he knows it's nearing an end. He has repeatedly said he won't overstay his welcome in basketball, yet that moment clearly hasn't arrived: James is still a dominant force for the Pacific Division-leading Lakers, averaging 23.5 points, 9.0 assists and 7.9 rebounds this season.
“It’s kind of laughable, really, to know where I am, to see where I am still, playing the game at a high level,” James said. “Still being such a young man, but old in the scheme of how many years I’ve got in this profession. (I) just think back to when I came into the league. That’s like the first thing I thought about. You came in as an 18-year-old kid, and now you’re sitting here as a 40-year-old, a 22-year vet, with a 20-year-old in the NBA as well. It’s pretty cool.”
James is already in his 22nd NBA campaign — more than any player except Vince Carter, who also played 22 seasons — and he will join the slightly larger list of NBA players to suit up after their 40th birthdays on Tuesday night when the Lakers host the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Akron, Ohio native won Cleveland's only major pro sports championship with the Cavs in 2016.
James said he reacted to his milestone birthday with a disbelief familiar to anybody whose life odometer has rolled over to a number they still haven't processed.
“I had a decade of the 30s, so to just wake up and just be like, ‘Oh shoot, oh damn, you’re 40?’” James said with a grin.
James said he already felt the march of time two months ago when he and his son, Bronny, became the first father and son to play in the NBA together.
LeBron is also encouraged by a solid season so far with the Lakers, who have looked livelier in their first year under new coach JJ Redick. Los Angeles got tougher and deeper Sunday when it traded D'Angelo Russell to Brooklyn for veteran wing defender Dorian Finney-Smith and guard Shake Milton.
“Right now, I think we’re a very good team,” James said. “I think we have a chance to compete with anybody in the league. Are we at a championship level? Can we win a championship right now? No, I don’t think so. That’s good, because we have so much room to improve, and we also just added two new guys as well. We’ll see how we incorporate those guys. It should be fun as well. But we’ll see. I don’t know if that determines if I stick around longer, because it doesn’t change my career in any sense or fashion.”
James also isn't thinking beyond Los Angeles, where he has settled into a comfortable California life with his family since 2018. He still expects the Lakers to be his final stop whenever he decides to close his epic career.
“I would love for it to end here,” James said. “That would be the plan. I came here to play the last stage of my career and to finish it off here. But I’m also not silly or too jaded to know the business of the game as well, to know the business of basketball. But I think my relationship with this organization speaks for itself.”
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) celebrates after scoring against the Sacramento Kings during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jed Jacobsohn)
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James stands on the court during warm ups before an NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eakin Howard)
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) warms up before an NBA basketball game against the Detroit Pistons in Los Angeles, Monday, Dec. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) looks on during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eakin Howard)
President Joe Biden on Thursday awarded the second highest civilian medal on Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, leaders of the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot who Donald Trump has said should be jailed for their roles in the inquiry.
Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony in the East Room, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president's longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.
“Together, you embody the central truth: We’re a great nation because we’re a good people," he said. "Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship. That’s our work for the ages and it’s what all of you embody.”
Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from a mob of angry Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election, when Trump tried and failed to overturn the results.
Cheney, a Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that investigated the insurrection. The committee's final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the election he lost to Biden and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. Thompson wrote that Trump “lit that fire.”
The crowd erupted in loud cheers and stood when Cheney took the stage. Biden clasped her hand and gave her the medal. The announcer said she was being given it “for putting the American people over party.”
Cheney, who lost her seat in the GOP primary in August, later said she would vote for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and campaigned with the Democratic nominee, raising Trump's ire. Biden has been considering whether to offer preemptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted.
Thompson also got a standing ovation.
Trump, who won the 2024 election and will take office Jan. 20, still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he is back in the White House.
During an interview with NBC's “Meet the Press,” the president-elect said that “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps," claiming without evidence they “deleted and destroyed” testimony they collected.
“Honestly, they should go to jail,” he said.
Cheney and Thompson were “an embarrassment to this country" for their conduct on the committee, Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung asserted.
Biden also awarded the medal to attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage, and Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage equality movement.
Other honorees included Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse during the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women's rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.
He bestowed the honor to photographer Bobby Sager, academics Thomas Vallely and Paula Wallace, and Frances Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
Other former lawmakers honored included former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas; and former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., who championed gun safety measures after her son and husband were shot to death.
After he presented the awards, he went back to the lectern to ask lawmakers in the room to stand, as well as John Kerry.
“Let's remember, our work continues," he said to the room after he thanked the families in attendance for the support they gave to the nominees. We've got a lot more work to do to keep this going.”
Biden honored four people posthumously: Joseph Galloway, a former war correspondent who wrote about the first major battle in Vietnam in the book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young"; civil rights advocate and attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; former Delaware judge Collins Seitz; and Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was held with other Japanese Americans during World War II and challenged the detention.
The Presidential Citizens Medal was created by President Richard Nixon in 1969 and is the country’s second highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes people who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”
This combo photo shows Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., speaking during the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago, left; and Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney speaking during a town hall with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at The People's Light in Malvern, Pa., Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, right. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley/Matt Rourke)
President Joe Biden makes a statement on the latest developments in New Orleans from Camp David, Md., Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
