At 41, LeBron James is turning back the clock and taking the Lakers on a storybook playoff run

The date is 12 March, and the Los Angeles Lakers are in the midst of a run that’s garnering a lot of well-deserved attention, in a month that sees them lose just two contests and win 15. The spirit of the locker room is at an all-time high, and it’s clear in talking to LeBron James, the 41-year-old storied veteran and greatest-of-all-time candidate who recently put his ego aside to accept a role as the team’s third option, that he believes what many around the NBA are starting to as well: his Lakers have a real shot at contention.

“As you get older, you appreciate the moment more than anything. When you’re younger, you think about what you’ve done in the past, or what’s to come in the future,” he tells me when I ask how he’s been able to be so present of late, in light of the ups and downs of a topsy-turvy Lakers season. “But the only thing that we know for sure is happening is the moment.”

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The sentiment was more poignant than even James knew at the time. The wind would be swiftly and mercilessly knocked out of those buoyant sails just a few short weeks later, on 2 April, when in the throes of a biblical drubbing at the hands of MVP frontrunner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his class-of-the-conference Thunder, the door to the Lakers’ postseason was seemingly slammed in their faces in downtown Oklahoma City. The Lakers were already emotionally wallopped, outmatched by orders of magnitude, down 31 at half-time. And then, in the span of a couple of minutes in the third quarter, Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves, the team’s backcourt starters, were both sidelined indefinitely with injury. The blow was devastating. The season was over. That is, until it wasn’t.

Related: LeBron James is 41. And he’s somehow still carrying his team in the playoffs

As recently as a month ago, it appeared that James’s days as the No 1 option were behind him, and for good reason. He’s a quadragenarian, the oldest player in the NBA for two years running. He shares a team with Dončić, the 27-year-old perennial MVP candidate and heir apparent to the Lakers franchise. But when, just a few short…

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Publish date : 2026-05-02 12:18:00

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