Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James spent the latter half of the summer in Paris representing Team USA at the 2024 Olympics. James had not played at the international event since 2012, but teamed up with Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and more for one last ride to try and win a gold medal.
James and his “Avengers” Olympic team were successful, securing the gold in Paris for the United States. LeBron led the way with dominant two-way performances that saw him control just about every part of the game. Curry had historic showings in the semifinal and gold medal games while Durant also had incredible moments.
And now, James is back with the Lakers for the 2024-25 season. And at Lakers Media Day, he explained what it’s like for him to be fully in the swing of basketball before the season has even started.
“Well I’m a little bit more advanced in the Olympic year,” James said. “So like in ‘04 when I went into my second year, ‘08, ‘12 and now ‘24, just because I’ve been playing all summer pretty much. So I’m a little bit more advanced in everything. I’m excited about that. Excited about getting to work tomorrow and it should be fun, really fun.”
The Olympics were obviously an incredible experience for James, but what he really took away from it was the ability to re-experience the joy of playing championship-level basketball.
“That I lost touch with? No. I don’t ever lose touch with the game of basketball, but it felt damn good to play meaningful basketball,” James admitted. “Like literally play for the highest level, we had two Game 7’s back to back, one vs. Serbia and then that last one vs. France where it was like this is why those text messages went out, this is why those calls happened.
“That fire and desire was brought back to me, this is what it was all about. This is why we all came together and called ourselves the Avengers. To have that feeling again where you’re playing like meaningful, real, every possession means something. If you make a mistake, it burns you. That was good to relive that going against those two great teams.”
While the Lakers have been to the postseason in each of the last two years, they were bounced in five games in the first round last season and had a non-competitive showing in the Western Conference Finals the year prior. The last time James played truly meaningful championship basketball was in the bubble in 2020.
Maybe with that fire, James can help lift the Lakers to a better place than last season despite having an almost identical roster.
LeBron James not thinking about retirement
The topic of retirement is going to follow LeBron James wherever he goes until he ultimately does call it a career, especially considering he is entering his 22nd NBA season. However, this year, he is focused more on enjoying the moment, slowing down, not taking things for granted and being with his son on the same roster.
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