“We all know that [James] speaks for himself, and we’ll look forward to those conversations when the time is right,” Pelinka said. “LeBron has given as much to the game of basketball as anyone who has ever played. When you do that, you earn a right to decide whether you’re going to give more. … 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.”
Despite James’ 40-point performance, including a career playoff-best 31 points in the first half, the seventh-seeded Lakers were swept by the top-seeded Nuggets with a 113-111 defeat in Game 4 on Monday night, ending James’ attempt to win his fifth career championship in his 20th NBA season.
Ham said jokingly: “Coming off a tough loss like that, the work we’ve put in this season, I think I was ready to retire after last night, too.”
Pelinka and Ham declined to speculate on whether James’ frustration stemmed from the urgency of his persistent foot injury, which could conceivably require surgery to correct fully. He missed a month of the regular season down the stretch but returned to his usual heavy workload before the playoffs.
James had been largely healthy throughout his NBA career until he reached his mid-30s in Los Angeles, where he has missed significant chunks in four of his five seasons.
“When there’s any injury, you seek multiple medical opinions, and there were some that doubted whether he could play again this season,” Pelinka said. “For him to end the season playing virtually 48 minutes and posting a virtual 40-point triple-double as a player in the 20th year of his NBA career is staggering. … Clearly he’s got the right recipe, because to go from doctor opinions saying your season may be over to ending it the way he did last night is breathtaking.”
Pelinka said he hopes to keep much of the Lakers’ current core around James and Anthony Davis, calling roster continuity “a high priority” after several years of major annual changes. But the GM also reiterated that he considers James and Davis to be the pillars of his roster, and James’ presence is vital to their hopes of continuing the progress they’ve made since February.
Los Angeles was one of the NBA’s best teams after making several moves at the trade deadline, going 18-8 to end the regular season even without James. The Lakers then made an impressive run to the conference finals, knocking off the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies and defending champion Golden State Warriors, but they ran out of steam against the powerhouse Nuggets.
Source-ESPN
