LeBron James is starring in a new commercial for Beats by Dre as the NBA superstar gets ready for his 21st season of professional basketball, hoping to lead the Los Angeles Lakers back to a championship as the oldest active player in the league. But while this is far from the first preseason cinematic advertisement featuring James that Beats has released, this one is notable for several reasons — including a surprising hint at how long the 38-year-old James might desire to keep playing in the NBA.
The two-minute video is narrated as a voicemail for LeBron by his wife Savannah James. It also features Manchester City and Norway soccer star Erling Haaland, considered the best goalscorer currently in the sport, receiving a similar voicemail from his father, former professional soccer player Alf-Inge Haaland.
Both Savannah and Alf-Inge reference the high external expectations placed upon their respective superstar family members in their interwoven voiceovers. But it’s a line near the end Savannah’s narration that caught fans’ notice Monday.
“The pressure doesn’t break you, it feeds you,” Savannah tells LeBron in the voiceover. “I mean, after 21 years in, you just get stronger. … Tell them you’re not done until you play with your son. Then do that again.”
Savannah references LeBron’s repeatedly stated desire to become the first NBA player to be teammates with his son, specifically LeBron “Bronny” James Jr., the eldest of his and Savannah’s three children, and the video underscores her narration by panning to a closeup on Bronny. But when Savannah says, “Then do that again,” the camera moves to their younger son, Bryce.
It’s the first time anyone associated with James has publicly implied that he may want to stay in the NBA long enough to not only play with Bronny, but also Bryce. Bronny is a freshman at USC who is technically eligible for the 2024 NBA Draft, though it remains to be seen how much he plays for the Trojans this season as he continues to recover from suffering a cardiac arrest over the summer.
Bryce, meanwhile, is a class of 2025 guard prospect who currently has a three-star ranking per 247sports. But the 16-year-old Bryce has undergone a growth spurt in recent years and is currently listed at 6-foot-6, three inches taller than his older brother. He recently took a recruiting visit to Ohio State, where his father is a big supporter of the football program, and walked out with an offer.
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It’s not crazy to think LeBron could play into his 40s
Bryce currently attends Notre Dame High School in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sherman Oaks. It’s a well-known athletic power that has seen several graduates play pro sports, most notably current MLB stars Giancarlo Stanton of the New York Yankees and Hunter Greene of the Cincinnati Reds.
Bryce is not currently set to be draft-eligible until 2026. At that point, his projected 2026-27 NBA rookie season would be LeBron’s 24th in the NBA, which would easily top Vince Carter’s 22 seasons as the longest-tenured career in NBA history.
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