Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, celebrating his 40th birthday Monday, said he could play another five to seven years in the NBA at a high-caliber level — though he conceded he would probably retire before then. The basketball superstar, speaking after a Lakers practice session, also said he plans to finish out his NBA career with the Lakers, and would not make a comeback after leaving the league — whenever that is.

Asked what might be the deciding factor about when to retire, James declared a lack of competitiveness would not be his reason.

“It won’t be because I can’t play this game at a high level,” James said. “To be honest, if I really wanted to, I could probably play this game at a high level for another five to seven years if I wanted to, but I’m not going to do that.”

James, in his record-tying 22nd NBA campaign, is averaging 23.5 points, 9.0 assists and 7.9 rebounds a game and shooting 49.6 percent from the floor.

He won a third Olympic gold medal with the US team of NBA stars in Paris this year and, after starting in the NBA as an 18-year-old rookie, now has a 20-year-old son as an NBA teammate.

James is a four-time NBA champion, four-time NBA Most Valuable Player, a 20-time NBA All-Star and owns the ever-expanding NBA records for most points and games played in a career.

James said he plans to play out his career with the Lakers.

“I think that’s the plan,” James said. “I would love for it to end here. That would be the plan. I came here to play the last stage of my career.

“I think my relationship with this organization speaks for itself. Hopefully I don’t have to go nowhere before my career is over.”

Once he is gone, James said, there will be no comeback attempts, as was the case with superstar Michael Jordan.

“No, no, no, no, no. But I will miss the hell out of it for sure,” James said. “But no, I won’t walk away and then come back.”

For his career, James is averaging 27.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 1.5 steals over 1,520 games.

Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 32 points and grabbed 14 rebounds on Saturday to spark the Milwaukee Bucks into the NBA Cup final with a 110-102 victory over the Atlanta Hawks. The Greek big man also added nine assists, four blocks and a steal while shooting 10-of-15 from the floor and 12-of-18 from the free throw line. Milwaukee will play for the title on Tuesday in Las Vegas against the winner of Saturday’s later Vegas semi-final between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets.

“We got stops. That was the most important thing,” Antetokounmpo said. “They were feeling comfortable, getting to their spots. We were able to disrupt their offense.

“We were moving the ball, playing team basketball, getting to our spots, knocking down a few shots down the stretch. That’s why we were able to get the win.”

The Bucks also had 25 points from Damian Lillard and 16 more from Brook Lopez while Trae Young led Atlanta with 35 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds.

The Bucks, who made an unbeaten run to last year’s inaugural semi-finals of the in-season tournament before losing to Indiana, were the only team to make a return trip to this year’s last four.

They were inspired by NBA scoring leader Antetokounmpo and his hunger after last year’s Cup near miss.

“Enjoy the game, take it a possession at a time and win the game. That’s it,” Antetokounmpo said on what he told his teammates. “If we compete, we’ll win the game.”

After a 2-8 start to the campaign, the Bucks have gone 12-3 since.

“We trust one another. We play together. There’s no more hero ball,” Antetokounmpo said. “In the beginning of the season we tried to do it by ourselves. It had a bad effect on the team. We figured out we have to compete as a team, move the ball as a team, compete together.

“We’ve changed our season around but we’ve got to keep going. The job is not done so far. We’ve got to keep playing together and hope we get better.”

Two Jalen Johnson dunks late in the third quarter gave the Hawks an 83-82 lead entering the fourth. Young scored 14 points in the third quarter and Lillard netted 11.

The game stayed on a knife’s edge into the final minutes but Antetokounmpo had six points in a 7-1 Bucks run for a 103-96 lead with 3:13 to play.

Young answered with two free throws and a jumper but Brook Lopez scored to give Milwaukee a 105-100 edge and Lillard sank a driving floater from the free throw line for a 107-100 lead with 23 seconds remaining.

The Bucks drained free throws down the stretch to secure the victory.

– Big runs early –

Antetokounmpo scored two fast-break layups in a 7-0 Bucks run to start the contest but the Hawks answered with the next seven as part of a 21-9 run to seize the lead.

The Bucks began the second quarter with a 12-0 run for a 38-28 edge and led 55-49 at half-time.

Lillard scored 10 points in the second quarter while Antetokounmpo had 14 points, eight rebounds and five assists in the first half and Young had 12 points, seven rebounds and seven assists for the Hawks in the first half.

The new Kobe Bryant statue outside of Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles will be updated after various spelling errors were discovered in the etching surrounding the sculpture’s base, as per a report in NBC News.

Basketball reporter Dre Voigt shared images of spelling mistakes he discovered on the statue honouring the Los Angeles Lakers icon, which shows a box score from Bryant’s 81-point game against the Toronto Raptors in 2006. It also includes spelling errors in the names of Jose Calderon and Von Wafer in a replica box score on the statue. In addition to spelling Wafer’s first name “Vom” rather than “Von,” the word “decision” is also spelt wrong. Further, Calderon’s last name is “Calderson.” The list of Kobe Bryant’s career accomplishments had been formatted incorrectly on another side of the base.

It seems like Kobe Bryant’s statue has misspelled ‘Jose Calderon,’ ‘Von Wafer,’ and ‘Coach’s Decision.’

(h/t @drevoigt ) pic.twitter.com/Xg2DFRHltS

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 11, 2024

The sculpture depicts Kobe Bryant striking a posture during the historic game, in which he scored the second-most points of any player in NBA history.

A Laker’s spokesperson said that they are already working to fix the issue. “We have been aware of this for a few weeks and are already working to get it corrected soon,” he said in a statement.

The 19-foot, 4,000-pound bronze statue was unveiled on February 8 to commemorate his number 8 jersey. It is one of the three planned tributes to the five-time NBA Champion.

Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash with his daughter Gianna and seven others in January 2020. His wife, Vanessa, said that the two other statues will feature the father-daughter duo and the other will have the basketball player in his number 24 jersey.