LeBron James will pick up his contract option for the 2025-26 season, setting up the Los Angeles Lakers star to become the first NBA player to play 23 seasons. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James will exercise his $52.6 million player option for the 2025-26 NBA season, people with knowledge of the situation confirmed Sunday.
The 40-year-old James, who became the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in 2023, could hit two major historical benchmarks in 2025-26: becoming the first player in league history to play 23 seasons and surpassing Robert Parish’s record for games played. James must play 50 games to overtake the Hall of Fame center’s record of 1,611.
James has flirted with the possibility of retirement for years and was noncommittal about his future following the Lakers’ first-round playoff loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in April. The four-time MVP, who last won a championship in 2020, said that the Lakers’ 2024-25 season left him with “disappointment and unfulfillment” because they didn’t reach the Finals. James averaged 24.4 points, 7.8 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game in 70 appearances to earn all-star and all-NBA second team honors before the Lakers, who finished third in the Western Conference, sputtered out in the playoffs.
“I will sit down with my family, wife and my support group and talk through it and see what happens,” James said in April. “Just have conversations with myself on how long I want to continue to play. I don’t know the answer to that right now, to be honest. We’ll see. … It’s a business, too. We don’t know what the roster will look like next year, besides the guys who are locked into contracts. I mean, s---, I have a lot to think about myself. I don’t know what the roster will look like. I don’t know where I stand right now.”
Last summer, James signed a two-year, $104 million contract extension shortly after the Lakers hired JJ Redick, his former podcast co-host, as coach and drafted Bronny James, his eldest son, in the second round of the 2024 draft. That agreement includes a no-trade clause. ESPN first reported James’s option decision Sunday.
James’s latest contract decision comes at something of a crossroads moment for the Lakers, who swung a blockbuster trade for Luka Doncic in February and reached agreement on an ownership change earlier this month.
Doncic, 26, is eligible for a four-year, $229 million contract extension later this summer. Meanwhile, longtime owner Jeanie Buss agreed to sell majority control of the Lakers to Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter at a $10 billion franchise valuation. Buss will maintain a minority stake and remain as the Lakers’ governor for the foreseeable future.
The Lakers’ changes raise some questions about James’s future in Los Angeles. James is set to enter his eighth season with the Lakers since arriving as a free agent in 2018, which would mark the longest stretch he’s spent with a team during his career.
While James has repeatedly expressed a desire to compete for a championship every season before he retires, the Lakers have suffered two straight first-round exits and must begin the process of reshaping their roster around Doncic. James and Doncic made for an exciting pairing following the trade, but the Lakers were undone in the playoffs by their lack of size and limited bench depth.
“[James] knows the Lakers are building for the future,” Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul, James’s agent, said in a statement to ESPN. “He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all. … We understand the difficulty in winning now while preparing for the future. We do want to evaluate what’s best for LeBron at this stage in his life and career. He wants to make every season he has left count, and the Lakers understand that, are supportive and want what’s best for him.”