LeBron James’ defiance of Father Time keeps us watching

Editor’s note: This is the Monday, March 27, 2023, edition of the Purple & Bold Lakers newsletter from reporter Kyle Goon. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

The closest I ever got in five years to seeing LeBron James as he is – and not merely as he wishes to be seen – was three years ago.

The NBA bubble had a bizarre kind of closeness (even as we were masking and following certain distancing guidelines) sort of like a high school drama production: You could always get a glimpse backstage. “Locker rooms” were sometimes curtained-off parts of the court that NBA teams were playing on feet away. There was very little privacy; vulnerabilities that can often be shrouded by closed doors in huge sprawling arenas were largely out for scrutiny.

It was in this setting that I watched James, then 35, work out with assistant Phil Handy for half an hour, which isn’t itself unusual. What was unique about this session was how poorly he shot, missing looks left and right, looking tired, sweating through his hoodie. During the early days of the pandemic, James had grown the beard of a mountaineer, and he had let gray seep into its fringes.

Writers look for poignant scenes and moments, and to me at the time, this was one of those. This workout was on the cusp of the NBA Restart, and truly no one knew how the top-seeded Lakers were going to play – not to mention if the entire bubble might collapse in a week. The gray hairs, the weary workout, James lying on his back on the court, swearing in frustration – it captured the sense of uncertainty at the time, as well as the star’s toughest one-on-one he’ll ever face, against Father Time.

So I did what any writer would do – I wrote it. And as vulnerable as I found that moment for LeBron, it was even more telling what I noticed in the media session before the first game that would count: He dyed his beard. All those white hairs that subtly suggest a kind of sageness or worldy experience were blended to look just like the others.

What I’ve come to understand about LeBron James is that he does not age gracefully. He ages defiantly. He kicks back. He relishes his still profound physical gifts at age 38, maybe even more loudly on social media than he ever did before. You think you can peg when he’s coming back from an injury? No, he says, only he decides when he’s coming back.

The latest battle of James’ career has summoned forth that brazenness once again. James’ latest four-week return from a torn tendon in his right foot is indeed a feat. But his willingness to trumpet the achievement in superlative terms is, well, very LeBron of him.

When did he get a sense that he could return earlier than most thought? “When the doctors told me I was healing faster than anybody they’ve seen before with the injury,” he said.

Faster than anybody? I’m sure they called Guinness to check the record book.

But past some declarations that can cause involuntary eye-rolling – like James’ description that he got his final medical recommendation from “the LeBron James of feet” – there’s something very compelling in his saga, now 20 years long.

Unlike many men feeling the onset of middle age doldrums setting in, James seeks to shake off the feeling like a musty winter coat. Unlike many of us, he has the ability to work out three hours a day on a torn tendon that two other doctors said he should get surgically repaired. And if he has to do tireless work around the clock to do it, he can. And he will.

James understands the work of being an NBA star – not just a great player, but a 24/7 face-of-the-league celebrity – in a way that few others have ever been able to grasp. One of the things he understood early on was that his body was his ticket, and if it failed him, that would diminish every other great ambition he had in his life. That’s why he reportedly spends $1 million or more on his body every year. It also helps frame why he can be so furtive about his physical vulnerabilities, which he treats as high-level corporate secrets.

When asked if he would eventually need surgery on his foot, James said the most he knows is that he doesn’t need surgery right now. But he added: “If I end up having to get surgery after the season, you guys won’t know. I don’t talk to you guys in the offseason, and by the time next season starts, I’ll be fine, I’ll be ready to go.”

James understands that his brand represents not just winning, but a kind of physical invincibility. That has been undercut in recent years by his injury struggles: In five seasons as a Laker, he’s only played more than 60 games once. The foot isn’t even his most serious injury he’s had in L.A. – his 2018 groin tear was the predecessor to a litany of injuries that followed, and at times he’s given us reason to believe that it still bothers him in some unknowable way.

But possibly the most human trait I’ve observed about LeBron is how he fights the idea that he’s getting older – whether it’s reposting his sky-high dunks, or doing a commercial where he plays the embodiment of Father Time. He spits in its face. He suggests that he’s still young at heart, perhaps the reason why he still gets a kick out of playing basketball against teenagers who played against his oldest son, or who have fathers who guarded him two decades ago.

At times, James’ struggle to stay ahead of the sands of time have gotten him into trouble. His support of the trade for Russell Westbrook can be seen, in one sense, of him trying to jumpstart a new super team, and it failing miserably. As defiant of time as he may be, James has a sense of how his championship contending window is closing – maybe most accurately, how time is limited for him to be the best player on a championship team – and it draws him to impulsive choices, like his desire for the Lakers to trade for Kyrie Irving earlier this season.

But outside of his dubious personnel judgment, James is driven to do other incredible things. Blowing past the NBA’s all-time scoring record might have felt, to some, a little hollow amid a season on the brink, but I suspect the passing of time and James’ continued distancing from the field will provide perspective to the achievement that was and is. Even before that, when he scored a season-high 47 points on his 38th birthday, he astounded and shook the dust off a team that was headed to oblivion – the start of a five-game win streak.

What we can lose sight of is that these days will end. That’s what ultimately gives sports such value: We watch highly trained, highly focused human beings perform physical feats no one else can. No game is ever perfectly duplicated – there’s a level of improvisation, a kind of script-less drama to every night that makes it compelling. And LeBron James is more fun to watch than most.

The reason I’m writing this is because I’m out of time. After five years covering the Lakers, this is my final day at Southern California News Group. I’ve watched LeBron and the Lakers play hundreds of times live, watched them win a championship that almost no one still can fully appreciate, watched them tumble from the top due to mistakes of their own making. It’s been a journey of triumph and grief.

After those tightly packed years, you’re filled with the urge to mark the moment. One impulse I have is to simply list all the things I wish I had communicated better as a day-to-day beat reporter, or weigh in on the pressing issues the franchise finds itself in now.

I will say I find Anthony Davis to be underappreciated, miscast by pundits trying to compare him to Michael Jordan instead of comparing him to Scottie Pippen. If the Lakers ever were to trade him (as many fans tweet over and over), they’d be hard-pressed to ever find someone with as much two-way value in return.

I think those who rushed to give two thumbs up to the Lakers at the trade deadline might want to wait until the season plays out, then ask themselves if saving a first-round pick was worth punting away half the season on a Westbrook experiment that had already played out.

I’ll say I think the Lakers, as a franchise, have to think hard about whether they’re growing the business and the brand in a way that sets them up for the future, rather than simply trading on their winning past and assuming that approach will keep carrying them.

But time and time again, I’m drawn to LeBron – who on the day of my final game covering the Lakers, made himself the story. And while the Lakers lost, watching him play was a fitting epitaph to my time on the beat. LeBron James agreed to join the Lakers on July 1, 2018. I agreed to cover the Lakers on July 2.

There are times when James seems like a “superhero,” as Jeanie Buss once told me. There are times when he seems like his celebrity has taken him out of touch or left him with a lack of perspective. But what we can find in those contradictions, I think, is that part of the human spirit that feels the drag of time and lashes back. There’s a human being in there, one who is still subject to the ravages of age, but he does everything in his power to push past those limits and keep the show going.

When I started covering the Lakers, I assumed I would be watching the gentle decline of James’ storied career. It’s been anything but: He rages against the dying of the light. Now, he’s outlasted this scribe – and I’m not going to be the one to take a guess at how many more minutes are left.

Only LeBron James can say when he’s done.

Editor’s note: Thanks for reading the Purple & Bold Lakers newsletter from reporter Kyle Goon. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.