LeBron James is running it back for at least one more season - just not in a Lakers uniform.
The 41-year-old superstar has decided to continue his NBA career into the 2026-27 season, which would make it a record-setting 24th campaign. But ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Tuesday, just before free agency officially opened, that James has told Los Angeles he’ll be playing elsewhere next year.
That leaves the league’s next LeBron watch wide open. A third stint with Cleveland is on the table, and the latest buzz has pointed to Golden State, where the Warriors are said to be very interested in pairing him with Steph Curry after the two played together on Team USA at the 2024 Olympics. Draymond Green has already declined his player option for the upcoming season in an effort to help make that happen.
Even with the uncertainty around his next stop, James keeps stacking numbers that belong in a museum. During the 2025-26 regular season, he put up 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, 7.2 assists and 1.2 steals across 60 games, averaging 33.2 minutes. In the playoffs, he turned it up again, posting 23.2 points, 6.3 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 1.3 steals per game before the Lakers were swept by the Thunder in the second round.
Wherever he lands next, James will enter the 2026-27 season sitting atop or near the top of the NBA record book in just about every direction you can look. He is the league’s all-time leader in points (43,440), games (1,622), minutes (61,030) and field goals made (15,961). He’s also sixth in three-pointers (2,636), fourth in assists (12,061), sixth in steals (2,417) and 24th in rebounds (12,095).
And there’s still room for the numbers to move. With another solid season, James could climb into the top 20 in rebounds, pass Jason Kidd (12,091) for third on the all-time assists list, and even threaten Chris Paul for the No. 2 spot (12,552).
The resume keeps getting stranger in the best possible way. James owns the highest value over replacement player in NBA history (156.61), leads the league’s career box plus/minus list (8.53), and is the only player ever to reach 40,000 points, 11,500 rebounds and 11,500 assists.
His path to this point has stretched across eras and franchises. Cleveland made him the No. 1 pick in the 2003 NBA draft, and he stayed there through the 2009-10 season. The Cavaliers reached the Finals in 2007 and were swept by the Spurs, and James left in 2010 after repeated postseason failures.
He joined Miami next, teaming up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. The Heat lost the 2011 Finals to the Mavericks, then won back-to-back titles in 2012 and ’13 before falling to the Spurs in ’14.
After that, he returned to Cleveland for four years. The Cavaliers lost to the Warriors in the Finals in his first season back, then James helped engineer one of the signature comebacks in league history in 2015, rallying from 3-1 down to beat Golden State in seven games for the franchise’s first title. Cleveland then lost to the Warriors again in the 2017 and ’18 Finals before James moved on once more.
He signed with the Lakers in the summer of 2018 and has been there ever since. Los Angeles missed the postseason in 2019, won the championship in 2020, and has had only fleeting playoff success since.
For all the hardware and all the records - four MVP awards, 22 All-Star selections, a record 13 All-NBA first-team honors, plus four second-team and three third-team nods - James still appears to be chasing the one thing that matters most to him: another ring. He already has four NBA titles, and he was named Finals MVP for each one. His most recent championship came with the Lakers in the NBA’s COVID-19 bubble in 2020.
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The real concern from San Antonios side was never nostalgia, though, it was the possibility of Leonard landing somewhere that would make the Western Conference even more punishing. Dallas, Golden State, Minnesota and even the Lakers all carried different kinds of problems for a Spurs team trying to rebuild its own path, and reports that the Mavericks were floating trade ideas only added to the unease. Instead, the outcome left the Spurs with the cleaner result they could have wanted, even if the bigger picture around Leonard still had one major branch to close. [Read more 🡒]
Another Spurs Target Is Gone As Patience Gets Harder To Defend
The Spurs have spent free agency signaling a clear preference for flexibility, and that approach is starting to come with a cost. As the market thins, more of the names tied to San Antonio are finding homes elsewhere, leaving the team to keep weighing whether patience is a virtue or just a way to watch useful options disappear.
What remains on the board is getting slimmer by the day, with only a few reported targets still available as the roster puzzle keeps shifting. San Antonios reluctance to clog the books with longer commitments has been easy to understand with major extensions looming for Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, and De'Aaron Fox, but it also means the Spurs may need to live with a narrower player pool than they first hoped. [Read more 🡒]