Another offseason, another year of speculation on whether or not LeBron James will announce his retirement. Amidst all that, an NBA insider has revealed some important details about an whenever-announced LeBron retirement.

According to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, LeBron James will not choose the Tim Duncan way of retiring by simply announcing to the world he is hanging up the sneakers after the season has concluded. Instead, James will be taking the Kobe Bryant route.

The Kobe route means having a farewell tour for an entire NBA season known before that upcoming season.

“And I think when it’s the final march of LeBron, perhaps final March rather than Last Dance, we’re all going to know. We’re all going to know and it’s going to be must see TV. It’s going to be the LeBron tour coming to town throughout the 28 NBA cities culminating in a spectacular farewell.”

McMenamin continues by saying that LeBron isn’t going to announce it, and that’s it; it will be a whole show.

“This isn’t going to be one of those things where after the season he says, ‘By the way, that was the last [season].’ He is going to want to dance or march his way out of the NBA.”

While no one knows when the 39-year-old will retire, fans do know that it will be planned out and that he will be celebrated for an entire season.

According to Marc Stein, the Golden State Warriors tried trading for LeBron James. This was very public and very real. However, LeBron James’ agent, Rich Paul, didn’t want it to happen due to the public criticism.

Despite team owners talking and negotiations ramping up rather quickly, the only way the Lakers would move LeBron was by him outright saying it. It’s unknown if James wanted to go to Golden State, but Paul feared the public would clown him for jumping to his fourth team.

So, with all that being said, the highly successful agent asked both teams not to consider any deal. It appears an image investment was made.

LeBron is under contract until 2026-27 unless he declines his option in 2025-26.

Saturday afternoon saw Team USA beat France 98-87 after an impressive performance by multiple players, which was spearheaded by Stephen Curry and LeBron James. While Curry had a phenomenal game, it wasn’t enough to secure MVP.

Instead, LeBron, who did not look like an aging player at all, secured the FIBA Olympic MVP after a fantastic Paris run with the United States. During the gold medal game, James had 14 points and 10 assists.

In the Semifinals against Serbia, their 17-point comeback, James notched a triple-double. It even goes beyond those two games, as his Olympic campaign averages were out of this world. LeBron averaged 14.2 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 8.5 assists per game.

With Saturday’s victory over Victor Wembanyama and France, LeBron has secured his third gold medal and fourth Olympic medal overall. In 2004, Team USA and LeBron went 5-3 and could only secure bronze. After that, it was gold from there on out.