The Los Angeles Lakers have started the 2025-26 season red-hot, winning six-of-eight and thriving on the historic play of Luka Dončić, who is averaging 41.3 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 8.3 assists per game.
Throw in Austin Reaves’ extraordinary start (31.1, 5.1, and 9.3), a 123-115 win over the Blazers Monday night without their stars, and a report from Shams Charania during an appearance on the Flagrant podcast that LeBron James could finish his career elsewhere, and some will argue that the Lakers do not need the 40-year-old forward to compete for an NBA title.
That would be an absurd argument.
There are a handful of players in the discussion for greatest of all time and James is one of them. In his age 40 season, he averaged 24.4 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 8.2 assists. He is still a skilled shooter, knocking down 51.3 percent from the floor and 37.6 percent from beyond the arc.
This is not a player whose skills have fallen off a cliff or an aging veteran superstar needing to lean on his teammates. James is still the caliber of player who can takeover a game and win it for his team.
He may be a touch slower and the injuries, like the sciatica that has kept him off the floor thus far in 2025-26, take longer to rehab, but when he is on the court, he is still in that elite tier.
Do the Lakers have to rely on him to the extent that they have over the last five years? No, especially with Dončić’s otherworldly play and the emergence of Reaves as a genuine star in the league, but James is a guy who can still put up numbers, facilitate offense, and show out in the biggest games and under the brightest of lights.
He will ultimately determine when and where his career comes to an end, whether that is in Los Angeles or elsewhere, but the Lakers should do everything in their power to keep him around as long as he is producing at the clip that he was as late as a season ago. The likelihood that a player of his caliber walks in through the door again is extremely low.
James has been a champion, knows what it takes to get there, and is still the guy to lead this incarnation of the Lakers to their first NBA title since the COVID-19-shortened 2020 campaign.