Lakers News: Rob Pelinka, Darvin Ham Weigh In On LeBron James Retirement Threat
Even though the Denver Nuggets booted your Los Angeles Lakers out of the playoffs in a four-game sweep en route to their first NBA Finals, LA has been the talk of the sports world ever since. That's because 20-year veteran All-NBA small forward LeBron James dropped a bomb during his postgame comments Monday, suggesting that he's thinking of retiring before the start of the 2023-24 season.
On Tuesday, team vice president of basketball operations/GM Rob Pelinka and first-year head coach Darvin Ham spoke with gathered journalists about the just-wrapped season and James' comments, per Mike Trudell of Lakers.com.
“LeBron has given as much to the game of basketball as anyone who’s ever played,” Pelinka noted. “When you do that, you earn the right to decide if you’re going to give more. I think sometimes we put athletes and entertainers on a pedestal, but they’re humans. Just like us, they have inflection points in their career. Our job as the Lakers organization is to support any player on our team if they reach a career inflection point. Obviously, our hope would be that his career continues, but we want to give him the time to have that inflection point and support him along the way in everything that he does.”
“Coming off a tough loss like that, with the work we’ve put in this season, I think I was ready to retire after last night too,” Ham joked. “But in all honesty and seriousness, LeBron has earned the right to do whatever he wants to do, make whatever choice.”
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