CLEVELAND — LeBron James shed tears on the bench during the first timeout of the Los Angeles Lakers’ game against his former team, overcome by emotion during the Cleveland Cavaliers’ tribute video for him.
You see, there have been lots of tribute videos for James since he left Cleveland in July 2018 — like, eight — and, well, that’s never happened before.
“I didn’t expect that,” James said afterward, during an emotional news conference.
“It got him,” Bronny James said. “Almost got me too.”
A lot of Cavalier history woven into these Classic threads. #LetEmKnow pic.twitter.com/WxzzWWqrCs
— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) January 29, 2026
If this is it, the last time James ever played a game here, then that was the moment to remember. The game was a blowout, the Cavs easily won, 129-99, and James endured a tough night with 11 points and six turnovers on 3-of-10 shooting.
James, 41 and in the final year of his contract with the Lakers, hasn’t said if this season, his 23rd in the NBA, is his last. But if it is, then this game would most likely be the last time he plays at Rocket Arena, where he led the Cavs to their first and only championship in 2016 and where he played home games for 11 years.
The Cavs and Lakers could, theoretically, meet in the finals. James admitted he thought about this game being the last time playing in Cleveland, but couched it, saying he has that thought any time he appears at an Eastern Conference arena.
Also during his news conference, James said he was trying to see how long he could continue beating Father Time, as though there was another year yet to squeeze out of his career.
There was no couching the visceral reaction he had to what’s become a routine tribute video for him and the Cavs.
As is typical when James returns to Cleveland with the Lakers, the Cavs played a tribute video for him that includes, but is not limited to, footage from that championship run. There was also footage from the Cavs’ first finals run, in 2007, when the 22-year-old James scored 25 consecutive points to beat the Detroit Pistons in Game 5 of the conference finals. The video concluded with the tag line “welcome home.”
Instead of raising his hand to the crowd or maybe putting his hand over his heart, like he usually does in moments like this, LeBron covered his face with his hands and then hid under his jersey.
When he left the bench after the timeout, he was clearly wiping tears from his face with a tissue.
LeBron James couldn’t hold back his emotions after watching his tribute video during what could have been his final NBA game in Cleveland on Wednesday. (David Richard / Imagn Images)
“I remember that moment like it was yesterday — I was the underdog going against that Detroit Piston team, and for us to win that game and then ultimately win Game 6, I believe here and going to the NBA finals was a pretty cool moment,” James said. “I try to take everything, not take the moments for granted, because it could be (his last game in Cleveland). Obviously, I haven’t made a decision on the future, but it very well could be.”
Oddly enough, the video that tripped up James played after the Lakers were forced to take a timeout after Luka Dončić tripped off the edge of the Cavaliers’ elevated court and grabbed at his ankle. After Miami’s Dru Smith injured his knee on a similar play in 2023, James told The Athletic the NBA “should address it.”
Dončić returned to the game after limping to the locker room and finished with 29 points and six assists in 30 minutes.
This was James’ eighth game in Cleveland as a member of the Lakers, counting the 2022 NBA All-Star Game. He seemed to be in this kind of sentimental mindframe moments before the game, when, after conducting his famous chalk toss at the scorer’s table, he walked slowly toward the far end of the court, seemingly staring out to the crowd as though he saw memories in the stands. He said afterward that he was looking for his mother, Gloria, who lives in northeast Ohio.
James brought to the podium his jersey, signed, with a note to his mother, and grew emotional again when talking about her.
“My mom was here watching her son and her grandson,” James said, referring also to Bronny, who played in the fourth quarter and scored eight points. “Like, I don’t even know how to even, like, wrap that all in one in my brain. It’s so weird, so cool and so surreal. My mom gets to watch her son and grandson play in the NBA at the same time. Man, I actually just started to think how insane that is.”
It turned out to be the worst game LeBron ever played against Cleveland. He’d never scored fewer than 18 points against the Cavs with Miami or the Lakers in the 24 previous such games, and the six turnovers were the second most he’d committed against his former team. The Lakers were outscored by 23 points in James’ 27 minutes on the court.
“I think there’s certainly emotions always for him coming back here, and during the tribute video, you could see that being back here is very important to him,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said, when asked for his thoughts about James’ tough night. “There’s a human element to all of this.”
All-Star Donovan Mitchell led the Cavs with 25 points, and Rising Stars honoree Jaylon Tyson added 20 points. Cleveland has won five straight and played without Evan Mobley, who is expected to miss one to three weeks with a calf injury.
James was the No. 1 pick of the 2003 draft, when he promised to light up Cleveland “like Las Vegas.” He led the franchise to five NBA Finals, including four in a row upon his return from Miami, beginning with the 2014-15 season, and then signed as a free agent with the Lakers after the Warriors swept the Cavs out of the 2018 finals.
“Eight years ago when I left to go to L.A., if you would have asked me, would I still be playing in 2026, I would have said no,” James said. “After going to eight straight finals and all the energy and all the mental toll and the physical toll that it took on me and, obviously, my teammates … if you would have asked me if I was gonna be playing eight years later, I would have said no. There’s no way I could have foreseen that.”
As the game began getting out of hand in the second half, the sold-out crowd started chanting for Lakers’ second-year guard Bronny. Born in northeast Ohio, Bronny grew up in Cleveland running around on the court after games. Fans were delighted when Bronny took the court with 8:23 remaining and the Lakers down by, oh, approximately a million. They went nuts when Bronny scored on a breakaway layup with less than four minutes to go, and he followed that up with two 3-pointers.
Cleveland, with so many memories for the patriarch of the James gang, is also where Bronny scored his first NBA points last season.
“It was pretty cool just sitting over there and watching him just continue to live out his dream,” LeBron said, after having expressed how clear it is to him that his own NBA dream, now 23 seasons long, doesn’t have much left.