The future of LeBron James was an extremely prevalent topic during the last NBA season with his continuation for the Los Angeles Lakers not in the bag.
Many felt that the time may be coming for him to move on from the Lakers and seek a new challenge for the latter stage of his career.
In the end, he signed a new contract with the Lakers and he now seems set to complete his dream of playing in the same team as his son Bronny as he was drafted by the Lakers.
Now that one issue has been settled, a new one has hit the NBA media cycle and it seems that there is disagreement over whether LeBron has done enough to have his jersey retired by the Lakers when his career does end.
There are a number of ways that a team can honor a former player and jersey retirement is one of the most common.
In the latest episode of the Stephen A. Smith Show, the host responded to a question about whether LeBron should have his jersey retired in LA.
“He doesn’t get his jersey retired in LA. It’s the Lakers. You just got one championship? One? One?! Look, in the Bubble, it’s hard. He deserves a lot of credit for it, but I don’t think you get your jersey retired because of that. LeBron is LeBron. He’s big time. Became the all-time leading scorer in NBA history wearing the Lakers uniform. You could make the case for that. He’s a champion in the Lakers uniform, you can make a case for that,” Smith said.
“But when you consider the greatness of the Los Angeles Lakers; Magic Johnson – five rings, Kobe Bryant – five rings, Shaquille O’Neal – four rings, Kareem Abdul Jabar, when you see that stuff, the late great Jerry West, even though he only had one ring, but obviously he was the silhouette. You could retire LeBron James’ jersey. I can’t rule it out, but if you didn’t, I don’t think anybody would sneeze at that. [But] You got to retire his jersey in Miami and you got to retire it, definitely, in Cleveland.”
