At 31, LeBron James is starting to realize that he’s not going to be able to play basketball forever. Over the course of the last few months, he’s seen Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett retire, and during an interview with the Associated Press on Monday afternoon, he admitted that he knows the end of his career is coming.
“My class is next," he told the AP during a 1-on-1 interview after speaking with a group reporters at Cavaliers’ media day. "We’re next up in line. We’ve given the game all we can give. We’re the next crew, so it definitely makes you reflect on everything and you don’t take anything for granted. I never do, but in my career, I’ve always been like, 'Man, this is an unbelievable moment I’ve been put in.' I try to give as much as I can. But we on deck."
On deck? Maybe. But LeBron isn’t planning on retiring anytime soon. In fact, while speaking with the AP, he said that he’s "just as hungry as I was before" when he was asked about trying to defend the NBA title the Cavaliers won against the Warriors in June. And he even joked about possibly playing in the NBA for another 10 years and threw out the idea of him playing alongside or even against his son LeBron James Jr. before his career is over.
"Yeah," LeBron said, while laughing, when he was asked if he feels good enough to spend another decade in the NBA. "That would give me a chance to play with my son or against my son."
We hadn’t even considered the possibility of that actually happening, but LBJ Jr. is 12 now and looks like he’s going to be a star. So there’s a chance that he could end up playing in the league at the same time as his dad at some point. How crazy would that be?
