When did LeBron James join the Lakers?
NBA superstar LeBron James will be entering his 21st year in the league this season and his sixth with the Los Angeles Lakers.
"King James" joined the Lakers back in the 2018-19 season, following a successful second tour of duty with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that picked him No. 1 in the 2003 Rookie Draft.
In his first year in Purple and Gold, the team missed the playoff bus but the following year they came back big time, winning the NBA title inside the ‘bubble’ because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They made it to the playoffs in two of the next three seasons, including last year, where they made it all the way to the Western Conference finals as the seventh seed and had to go through the play-in tournament.
During his tenure with the Lakers, LeBron James has been consistently in his element, posting solid averages of 27.4 points, 8.1 rebounds, 8.0 assists and 1.2 steals in 35.2 minutes of play.
Last season, his Lakers journey was made even more special as he broke the NBA’s all-time scoring record, long held by another Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
With 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter of their game against the Oklahoma City Thunder in L.A., James pulled up for a jumper over Kenrich Williams to score his 38,388th point to stand alone on top of the NBA all-time scoring record list.
Abdul-Jabbar finished his career with 38,387 points.
Watch Lebron James’ history-making shot below:
For the upcoming season, LeBron James said he is looking forward to leading a shored-up Laker squad for a deeper run than the last one they had previously.
Why is LeBron James not playing for Team USA in the 2023 FIBA World Cup?
It has been quite a while since LeBron James represented the United States in international competition and he has his reasons.
Now in the tail-end of his Hall-of-Fame career, "King James" has chosen to pick the battles he wants to be part of to ensure that he remains fit and healthy to be able to continue playing even though he is already pushing 40.
It is little wonder then that he is not part of Team USA currently seeing action in the Philippines for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup.
The team is bannered by rising NBA stars, led by the likes of Anthony Edwards (Minnesota), Brandon Ingram (New Orleans), Tyrese Halliburton (Indiana), Jalen Brunson (New York) and Jared Jackson Jr. (Memphis).
The Steve Kerr-coached squad has made it to the semifinals of the tournament and was set to take on Germany for a spot in the finals on Friday evening.
LeBron James was last part of the U.S. squad in 2012 for the London Olympic Games, helping the team win the gold medal. It was his second straight golden conquest after that in 2008 with the ‘Redeem Team’ in Beijing.