Miami (AFP) – LeBron James broke the NBA record for most regular-season games played on Saturday, taking the court for his 1,612th when the Los Angeles Lakers tipped off against the Orlando Magic. “King” James passed the mark of 1,611 that Robert Parish had held since he retired in 1997.
Four-time NBA champion James, 41, had equaled Parish’s tally on Thursday in stunning fashion, posting a triple-double in the Lakers’ win over the Heat in Miami after the team arrived in Florida around 4 a.m. in the wake of a Wednesday night win in Houston. “He’s got to be insane,” 27-year-old teammate Austin Reaves said of James’s continued appetite for excellence. “Can’t be normal things going on in his brain to do it so well at such a high level. There’s nothing left to prove, but he finds something to continue to motivate him. It’s a beautiful thing …(if) there’s anybody in the world that could take games off, mentally not be there in a film session, practice, whatever it might be, it could be him. And that’s not how he’s wired.”
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James, playing his unprecedented 23rd season, already holds a host of NBA records, including points scored, field goals made and field goals attempted, and the longest streak of regular-season games with at least 10 points scored—1,297—in history. But James says those aren’t the kind of records he had in mind when he launched his career. “It’s not like I’m writing things down or looking at the record books and saying, ‘I’m going to get that, I’m going to get that, I’m going to get that,'” James said Thursday. “It just kind of happened. It was not on the list of things that I wanted to accomplish. Games played, all-time leader in points … 10-point streak, those things was not in my mind.”
“I wanted to be the greatest, one of the greatest, if not the greatest ever to play this game. I wanted to be an NBA champion. I wanted to possibly win Rookie of the Year, make All-Star appearances, win a gold medal, win some MVPs … those were some of my goals. But some of the stuff that has been happening over the course of the last few years has been super-duper cool.” Including playoff games, James has amassed a total of 1,904 fixtures during his career. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a distant second with 1,797 appearances while Parish is third on 1,795.
James’s meticulous physical preparation allows him to achieve another key aim: simply to be ready when his team calls on him. “Availability, I’ve always wanted to be available to my teammates,” James said. “It’s a mental toll, trying to play a lot and being out there… I just give a lot of praise to the man above and (it’s about) just loving the game and appreciating the game.”
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