LeBron James, 40: A milestone birthday arrives Monday for the NBA’s all-time scoring leader

When LeBron James set another NBA record earlier this month, the most regular-season minutes played in a career, his Los Angeles Lakers teammates handled the moment in typical locker room fashion.

They made fun of him.

“They told me I’m old as hell,” James said.

By NBA standards, they’re not wrong. He was dubbed “The Kid from Akron” when the Ohio native entered the league with a limitless future nearly 22 years ago. He is now the 40-year-old from Los Angeles with gray streaks in his beard. He turned 40 on Monday and in his next game will become the first player in NBA history to appear in a game in his teens, 20s, 30s and 40s.

Such a feat has happened a few dozen times in baseball before. It’s happened in hockey — Gordie Howe was a player for five decades, appearing in the NHL from his teens to the 50s — but never in the NFL or NBA. Until now. James makes more basketball history and creates his own club.

“In some ways, he’s a freak of nature,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “I’ve been around a lot of great players and he’s one of the hardest working players I’ve been around. I mean, he doesn’t take a day off. He doesn’t seem to take an afternoon off. He’s always working on some part of his body. You meet him and he’s always soaking something or eating something or has something attached to him.”

A 40th birthday, in NBA terms, means the end of the court is near. James becomes the 30th player to appear in a regular season game with a “4” as the first digit in his age; only nine logged more than 51 games after that birthday. He becomes the 32nd player to play after turning 40 overall; Tim Duncan and Danny Schayes both turned 40 during the playoffs in what became their final seasons.

And for the most part, big numbers are pretty much non-existent at that age.

Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (who did it three times), John Stockton (twice), Michael Jordan, Robert Parish and Karl Malone have averaged more than 10 points in a season after turning 40. Jordan averaged 22 .4 points in 30 games after turning 40. in his final season with Washington; Malone is the latest to do so, averaging 13.2 points in 42 games after turning 40 while with the Lakers in 2003-04.

James, meanwhile, is still performing at an All-Star level: 23.5 points, 9 assists and 7.5 rebounds per game. match. Forget how doing it at 40 is unheard of. Doing it at 30 is practically unheard of. The only players to have those numbers in all three categories in a season after turning 30 are James (who did it at 33 and 35) and James Harden (who did it at 31).

“The size, the strength and the IQ … with his frame and the way he takes care of himself, he’s not necessarily the best athlete on the planet. He was at one point,” Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We not talking about the best athlete in the league. He was arguably the best athlete on the planet, just size, strength, agility, explosiveness combined. But at this size, and if he just wants to slow the game down and just play off his brain , he could do it in another decade. I doubt he’ll find interest in it.”

No one knows when James will stop playing. And it certainly won’t get any easier: James wanted to play all 82 games this season and couldn’t, was heavily criticized when the Lakers went through a slump earlier this season and received tons of backlash when his team drafted his son Bronny in the second round last year summer in what many thought was simple nepotism.

He has always been a lightning rod. If his game drops at 40, his naysayers will line up to enjoy it.

“It’s a lot harder, physically and emotionally, to watch what those guys face night after night after night,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said of the top NBA stars who have risen in years, such as James and Warriors’ Stephen Curry – who will turn 37 in March. “There’s a reason why players have to retire. You know, they can’t do it forever.”

James won’t either.

But even while playing alongside elite 30-year-olds like Giannis Antetokounmpo, James — who reportedly spends more than $1.5 million annually on his fitness and has some sort of on-site mechanic for whatever his body needs in personal athletic training guru in Mike Mancias — has shown how to play long past what used to be considered an NBA player’s prime years.

“What he’s done is unbelievable, never been done, especially at the level he’s playing,” Antetokounmpo said. “For me, I always look at the other players who set the plan for us, and that’s something that’s never been done before. I definitely want to play late in my career, like 37, 38, 39, as much as my body can allow me to play. But I have to do a good job of taking care of my body, which I think I do, but he kind of set the path for us, we just have to go with it .”

The accolades are countless: James is the NBA’s all-time scoring leader, has a spot in the GOAT conversation, most minutes played, four NBA championships, three Olympic gold medals, 20 and likely soon to be 21 All-Star selections, oldest to do this, the oldest to do so, generational wealth with a net worth of over $1 billion, and on and on.

This raises the question: What do you get a 40-year-old who has everything?

“I don’t even know,” lamented Bronny James — another example of how James is one of a kind, becoming the first father in NBA history to have his son as a teammate.

James has hinted that the end is near. “Don’t make me feel old right now,” he said, only half laughing, when asked about the looming 40th birthday earlier this month. He is under contract for next season but has offered no guarantees on how long he will play, saying he is not “going to play that much longer, to be honest” and insisting he will not “play until the wheels fall off” because he does not want to disrespect the game.

No player scored more points in his teenage years than James did. The same goes for his 20s. Only Malone and Abdul-Jabbar scored more points in their 30s than James. And now, here comes his 40s, with James still going strong.

It’s the last decade of a basketball career like no other.

“Fans pay attention every time he steps on the field because they’re watching one of the greatest ever and still playing at an incredibly high level despite turning 40 this month,” Silver said. “I wonder about him.”