LOS ANGELES: LeBron James is reportedly considering retirement from basketball after the Los Angeles Lakers were swept out of the NBA playoffs by the Denver Nuggets on Monday.
ESPN reported that the 38-year-old was thinking about “walking away” from the sport after the Lakers’ defeat brought the curtain down on his 20th season in the league.
Chris Haynes, a reporter for the TNT broadcaster, said in a separate tweet citing league sources that James’s retirement was “under consideration.”
James himself fueled speculation about his future in a cryptic post-game press conference, saying that he planned to take time to reflect on the next stage of his career after the Lakers’ exit.
Asked for his reflections on the past season, where he became the league’s all-time leading points scorer before leading a rejuvenated Lakers to the brink of the NBA Finals, James said the campaign had been “challenging.”
“I don’t know. I think it was okay. I don’t like to say it’s a successful year because I don’t play for anything besides winning championships at this point in my career,” said James, who delivered a vintage 40-point performance in the Lakers’ 113-111 loss on Monday.
“I don’t get a kick out of making a Conference (finals) appearance. I’ve done it, a lot. And it’s not fun to me to not be able to be a part of getting to the Finals.
“But we’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens going forward. I don’t know. I’ve got a lot to think about to be honest. I’ve got a lot to think about to be honest.
“Just for me personally going forward with the game of basketball, I’ve got a lot to think about.”
James signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers last August that would keep him at the club through the 2024-2025 season.
He has long said that he wants to continue playing in order to play with or against his son Bronny James, who will play college basketball next season at the University of Southern California and could conceivably enter the NBA in time for the 2024-2025 campaign.
LeBron James mulling retirement after Lakers exit: ESPN
https://arab.news/bkvk2
LeBron James mulling retirement after Lakers exit: ESPN
- Thinks about ‘walking away’ from the sport after the Lakers’ defeat brings curtain down on his 20th season in the league
- LeBron James signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers last August
Arab Cup 2025 attendance surpasses recent AFCON and AFC Asian Cup
- The tournament, held under FIFA jurisdiction for the second time, achieved a record average attendance of 38,644 fans per match
- Total attendance more than doubled since 2021, with Algeria vs. UAE quarter-final pushing it past one million spectators
RIYADH: For a tournament often dismissed by critics as little more than a friendly or “B-team” competition, the 2025 Arab Cup delivered a compelling response.
A total of 1,236,600 people attended the 32 matches across the tournament, an average of 38,644 spectators per game, as the Arab Cup returned to Qatar for a second consecutive time after its successful staging in 2021. That earlier tournament, initially launched as a Confederations Cup-like test event ahead of the World Cup, drew 571,605 spectators in total.
Despite those figures, the Arab Cup has faced persistent criticism. Questions have been raised around the quality of play and refereeing standards, with some supporters – both within and beyond the Arab world – branding the tournament “meaningless.”
Yet when placed alongside recent continental competitions, the attendance figures tell a different story.
The 2023 African Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast attracted 1,109,593 fans across 52 matches, an average of 21,338 per game. Meanwhile, the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, also hosted in Qatar, recorded 1,507,790 spectators over 51 matches — roughly 29,565 per game, the highest average in the competition’s history.
Direct comparisons, however, require context. Continental — as opposed to regional — competitions draw support from across vast geographies, while the Arab Cup benefits from strong expatriate communities based in the host nation. Expecting the same travel patterns from fans in East Asia or West Asia would be, to say the least, unrealistic.
Even so, the attendance of more than 38,000 fans per game is significant. The Arab Cup was not always popular, with the attendance in 2021 struggling to rise above an average of 17,000 per game. Only four games at the 2025 edition fell below the 20,000 mark.
Historical context further underlines this shift. The 2011 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar, along with multiple editions of the West Asian Football Federation Championship held across the region, struggled to surpass a figure of 13,000 fans per game.
While Morocco will bask in the glory of the 2025 Arab Cup, the tournament itself has shown a broader shift in football engagement across the Arab World — one no longer driven solely by interest in European leagues, but by growing confidence in domestic teams, national projects and regional competitions.
From Saudi Arabia’s ambitions in club football to Morocco’s recent international success and Qatar’s continued role as a host, momentum continues to build across the Middle East and North Africa, with the Arab Cup one of the latest competitions offering tangible evidence of that change.
