When LeBron James broke another NBA record earlier this month, the one for 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 quipped.
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’s now the 40-year-old from Los Angeles with wisps of gray in his beard.
His milestone birthday comes today, one that will make him the first player in NBA history to play in his teens, 20s, 30s and 40s. “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 seems to not take an afternoon off. He’s always working on some part of his body.
You meet with him and he’s always soaking something or eating something with some contraption attached to him.” A 40th birthday, in NBA terms, means the on-court end is near. James will become the 30th player to appear in a regular-season game with a “4” as the first digit of his age; only nine logged more than 51 games after that birthday.
He’ll be the 32nd player to play after turning 40 overall; Tim Duncan and Danny Schayes both turned 40 during playoff runs in what became their final seasons. And for the most par.
