LeBron James plans to leave Lakers for record 24th NBA season

LeBron James plans to play elsewhere for his 24th NBA season, a move that would end his run in Los Angeles after eight seasons and send the Lakers into their first full stretch without him since 2018. At 41, James is still shaping the league’s power map, and his next choice now looks as much like a search for one last title window as it does a decision about where his career ends.

James leaves behind a Lakers tenure defined by both survival and payoff. He arrived after eight straight trips to the NBA Finals with Miami, missed the playoffs in his injury-hit first season in Los Angeles, then helped lift the franchise back to the Finals in 2020. The Lakers beat the Miami Heat 106-93 in Game 6 to win their 17th championship, tying the Boston Celtics for the league record at the time and ending a 10-year Finals drought.

The scale of James’ exit is sharpened by the numbers around it. He exercised his $52.6 million player option to return for 2025-26, becoming the first player in NBA history to reach a 23rd season. Last season, he averaged 20.9 points, 7.2 assists and 6.1 rebounds over 60 games for Los Angeles. In the 2024-25 regular season, he had averaged 24.4 points, 8.2 assists and 7.8 rebounds, a reminder that even in his 40s he remained the center of the Lakers’ offensive structure.

The Lakers have already spent months planning around that uncertainty. In May, James said he did not know whether the playoff loss would be the final game of his career. Rob Pelinka said the Lakers would welcome James back if he wanted to continue, while coach JJ Redick had already been extended, a sign that the organization was preparing for every version of the future except the one in which James carried the roster forever.

What comes next is a power shift as much as a farewell. James has spent years forcing franchises to build around his timeline, and his departure would push the Lakers toward a post-LeBron identity built on roster depth, cap flexibility and younger stars. For James, the decision now turns on the kind of contender he wants at 41: a team with enough elite talent to chase a ring immediately, or a final stop that simply lets him manage the end of one of the league’s longest careers on his own terms.