Apr 5, 2026; Dallas, Texas, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) looks on during the game against the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images
LeBron James made the biggest splash of the NBA summer when he announced that he would be taking his talents to Broad Street and joining the Philadelphia 76ers for what was all but assuredly the final stop of his historic career.
The narrative potential in Philly is rich. Can LeBron and his championship experience help a talented group that has always fallen short in the postseason finally make a run back to championship glory for the first time in more than four decades? How will a team with four All-Stars in the starting five manage to share the ball? Can Fanatics print enough new LeBron jerseys to keep up with the demand of the Philadelphia market?
Given all the excitement around the team, it came as no surprise that shortly after James’s decision was made clear, reports came out that he was planning a documentary akin to Michael Jordan and The Last Dance to follow his final seasons in the NBA. Insider Marc Stein noted that the money from a documentary could make up the difference in James’s pay now that he’s playing on one of the cheapest contracts in the league. Andrew Marchand of The Athletic furthered that reporting, with sources telling him that a deal between James and ESPN on the doc was at the “one-yard line.”
But despite that noise, longtime LeBron business partner Maverick Carter insists that James is not doing his own version of The Last Dance.
We are NOT doing anything like the “last dance” LeBron doesn’t even know when his last season is
— Maverick Carter (@mavcarter) July 30, 2026
James retweeted the post from his own account.
By the sound of it, Carter seems more miffed by the direct comparisons to The Last Dance rather than the implication that James & Co. are planning a documentary in general.
The desire to delineate between the two projects is understandable—James and Carter don’t want the narrative to be that their camp is simply doing the same thing that Jordan did. At the same time, if one of the NBA GOATs has a camera crew around through the final seasons of their career to document the journey, the comparison is inevitable. Carter says LeBron “doesn’t even know when his last season is,” but that is hardly relevant—the longer LeBron decides to play, the more material a film crew has to work with.
James’s agent Rich Paul teased that people believing this was the final hurrah of the career of the NBA’s all-time leading scorer may be in for a surprise. “I think Philadelphia’s going to energize him,” Paul told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin after James’s move became official. “Maybe we get two [seasons]. Maybe we get four.”
Energy will undoubtedly be a factor in how long James spends in Philly before retiring. Another factor may be how long it takes to find the right ending to his own documentary.