Brian Windhorst has been covering the four-time champion since his high school days in Akron, Ohio, the longest-running beat of any NBA reporter tracking a single player in the sport’s history. So when he sat down with Dan Patrick and admitted that he walked into a meeting with his ESPN bosses this season to plan for LeBron James’ retirement, it landed differently than it would have coming from anyone else.

Appearing on the The Dan Patrick Show, Windhorst revealed that when LeBron James returned from the sciatica injury that sidelined him for the first 14 games of his 23rd season, the sight was alarming. “When he first came back, he looked terrible, to be fair. For the first time, he looked old,” Windhorst said. “I remember watching when he first came back and saying, ‘Oh, this might be it.’” The numbers backed that up early, as James averaged roughly 14 points across his first six games back, far below his usual scoring output, with noticeably fewer drives and less burst.

The concern was serious enough that Windhorst took it upstairs. “I had a meeting with my bosses, and I go, ‘You know, we may need to start our content planning for him retiring, because he looks for the first time like an old man who can’t compete.’”

The honest assessment was grounded in context rather than alarm. James sustained the sciatica injury during an on-court workout in late July or early August, which wiped out his entire offseason and training camp. Without that buildup, the version of him that returned in late November looked visibly diminished. Windhorst made that clear: “He couldn’t really work out all summer. He had no training camp.” For the first time, the body that had defied every precedent in sport looked like it had limits, and ESPN bosses quietly began preparing their coverage teams for a possible end.

What followed, however, was the rebuttal. Windhorst described a three-act season unlike anything James had previously produced. “As the season went along, he got himself into better condition. And by the time the spring came, when they really needed him, he was in great shape.” Then came the middle act, a deliberate adjustment in role to fit alongside Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic. “Midway through this year, he took a step backward or sideways so that it could work better with Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic. So he took, even if he was feeling 100 percent and feeling like a 30-year-old, he significantly adjusted the way he played the game.” And then, with both guards sidelined in the playoffs due to injury, came the third act, a return to full LeBron out of necessity.

“Unlike Any Season He’s Had Before”: Windhorst On Why This LeBron Year Stands Alone

Windhorst’s broader reflection on the Dan Patrick Show wasn’t just about the sciatica or the retirement meeting. It was about what this season reveals when you zoom out. The host prompted him on the richness of watching LeBron James in what could be the final stages of his career, alongside Durant and Steph Curry, as something future audiences will struggle to fully appreciate. Windhorst’s answer was precise. “What LeBron’s career is, the richness of his career is the sub-stories of each of these areas in each of these seasons,” he said. “You know, the concept of getting to eight straight finals is preposterous, but I won’t focus on that. There were so many things that happened in these individual years.”

The 2025-26 season, in his opinion, is one of those individual years that earns its own chapter, not because of a single performance, but because of the arc it traced across eight months.

He landed on a conclusion that stopped just short of calling it the most remarkable season of his career, but only just. “He has traits about him that are sometimes annoying, but when you look at the actual accomplishment and take it for its value, it’s pretty darn remarkable,” Windhorst said. “Not just that he’s 41, just that he’s doing just what he’s done this year, which has been unlike any season he’s had before.”

Moments like this are not new for all-time greats. Tom Brady faced similar doubts in 2014 when analysts questioned whether he was finished after a slow start, only to respond with a Super Bowl run. James has followed a similar pattern throughout his career, including bouncing back from his injury-hit first Lakers season in 2019 to win a championship the very next year.

Others at ESPN share that view, with sources indicating that Rob Pelinka’s preseason comments about wanting James to retire a Laker reflected a 2026 or 2027 window. Internally, the expectation was always that he still had time left, even during the early-season concern. Windhorst’s bosses began preparing retirement coverage in December, but the network has shelved those plans for now as the Los Angeles Lakers hold a 2-0 first-round series lead over the Houston Rockets.