There's Only One Last Time
The most fitting end for the LeBron Watch era.
Do you think LeBron is also kinda over LeBron Watch and just can’t be bothered to deal with it right now?
I joke. Mostly. But, honestly, if everyone, as they always have, bends obediently to your timeline, I can see getting a little lax and procrastinatory.
Whatever he wants is on the table, as it has been from the moment he announced he’d be leaving the Lakers. Whether he announces his decision as I’m typing this or stays mum for another month, the league will wait. His options are not drying up.
Crazy as it sounds, I can see just kinda putting it off. Having the entire NBA waiting on him isn’t new and exciting. It’s just been the standard setting his entire adult life.
This time, understandably, feels different.
There’s presumably some wistfulness at the mortality of his basketball career. And not only on the court. This fourth edition of LeBron Watch is almost certainly the last one of these. You don’t think he’s going to miss this part of it too?? This has been as big a part of The LeBron Experience as anything outside of actually playing basketball. Maybe he’s just savoring it, once and for all. And perhaps, he said, further speculating wildly and irresponsibly, some ennui has snuck in.
With 2010’s original Decision, ill-conceived as it was, he ushered in a previously unfathomed era of player empowerment, unequivocally made himself the NBA’s main character, and got to play the most thrilling basketball of his career. In 2014, he righted that wrong by returning to Cleveland, where he delivered four consecutive Finals trips and the city’s first pro sports championship in 52 years.
Four years after that, he headed for Hollywood, to join one of the NBA’s true bluebloods. Eight years hence, he’s pro basketball’s all-time leading scorer, a four-time champion, has played NBA ball with Bronny, and will have one of his numbers raised to the rafters Downtown, forever linked with Mikan, Baylor, West, Magic, Kareem, Shaq, and Kobe.
This time around, what are we even doing? Is this really fun for anyone anymore?
Not that his options are unviable. A full-circle return to Cleveland, to help a hyper-talented but stalled would-be contender over the top? A rapprochement with Pat Riley and a chance to set the tone for the Giannis era on South Beach? Last Vegas with Steph and Draymond? Ring-chasing with Ant and LaMelo in Minny? Or Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Jaylen Brown, and Joel Embiid in Philly?
All fine, I suppose, but not really a fifth ring or “basketball nirvana” among them. All of which got me thinking…
Needless to say, I know nothing. But the more I allow myself to tinker with this, the more it feels like there’s only one dénouement worthy of the past quarter-century — and, of course, LeBron Watch.
What if this is how LeBron retires? One last Watch. Once he’s done, he’s done. Could any exit be more “LeBron, on his own terms”?