Los Angeles Rams stars Matthew Stafford and Davante Adams have revealed that standout wide receiver Puka Nacua watches LeBron James‘ NBA career highlights before an NFL game.
Nacua, 24, has been one of the NFL’s best valued draft picks in recent years, with the Rams taking the former BYU star 177th overall in 2023. The Utah-born Nacua immediately impacted the Rams, setting the NFL rookie record with 105 receptions in 2023, which was later broken by Las Vegas Raiders tight end Brock Bowers in 2024.
This season, third-year receiver Nacua set the NFL record for most receptions by a player in their team’s first five games of a season when he recorded 10 catches in the defeat to the San Francisco 49ers earlier this week. The standout game took Nacua’s total receptions to 52 after Week 5, which broke Rams legend Cooper Kupp’s record.
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Nacua is on pace for 177 receptions and 1,999 yards this season, which would break both the single-season receptions and receiving yards records. He’ll have the help of quarterback Stafford, who worked with record holder Calvin Johnson (1,964 yards) at the Detroit Lions, and No. 2 Kupp (1,947 yards), a triple crown winner, at the Rams.
Stafford and Nacua’s fellow receiver Adams has revealed how their teammate prepares for NFL games. According to both, Nacua, a huge basketball fan who hopes to play once he retires from the NFL, watches NBA legend James’ career highlights.
“Little-known fact, Puka watches LeBron James highlights before NFL games. Not really sure how he correlates the two, but he loves LeBron and also thinks he could play in the NBA,” Stafford said.
“So I will I will vouch and say that it’s true because I just saw him before this this last game, sitting next to me watching and I was confused. I’m like ,’What?'” Adams added. “It was a LeBron James career highlights.”
Nacua has set a retirement timeline of 30, which could then allow him to switch to playing basketball. “I know I want to retire at the age of 30,” Nacua said earlier this year. “I’m 23 right now, I’m going into Year 3 — it wouldn’t even be 10 years. It’d be maybe seven or eight. I think of Aaron Donald, to go out at the top, I think it would be super cool.”
Nacua is one of six children, and hopes to have a big family of his own. “I want to be able to be a part of their lives and be as active as I can with them,” he said.
“The injuries are something you can’t control [as] part of the game, so you never know,” Nacua added.
“Hopefully, the rest of the career can go healthy, but you have shoulder surgery, you have knee surgery, you have ankle.
“By the time my kids could be 18, I could be barely walking if you play the game and sustain all the injuries and stuff like that, but I want to retire early.”