Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – NBA superstar LeBron James celebrates his 40th birthday on Monday, the milestone carrying him to yet another first in a league in which he has starred for more than two decades — with the clock still running. The Los Angeles Lakers great will become the first NBA player ever to play in his teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s.
A four-time champion, four-time NBA Most Valuable Player and four-time Finals MVP, James continues to excel. In his 22nd season, he’s averaging 23.5 points, nine assists, and 7.5 rebounds per game. Having surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the league’s all-time scoring leader in February of 2023, he has taken his total to 41,131. Still in his sights is the record for baskets made — James’s 15,088 trailing Abdul-Jabbar’s 15,837 — and the record for most games played. With 1,520, he’s fifth on that list topped by the 1,611 of Robert Parish.
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“It’s just commitment to the craft and to the passion and love I have for the game,” James said when he set the minutes-played mark on December 19. “It’s kind of mind-boggling just to be in this position coaching him, playing against him for 15 years, taking three years of calling his games and then he’s still playing at this level,” said JJ Redick, the 40-year-old who played 15 seasons in the NBA then served as a TV commentator before being named head coach of the Los Angeles Lakes in June. “Feels like he’s just been doing this forever, and not a small stretch in human history — but forever. And that just speaks to his competitive stamina and love of the game.”
James’s longevity allowed him to achieve a cherished dream this season, playing alongside son Bronny James as they became the first father-son duo to play together in a regular-season game. The Lakers’ decision to draft the largely untried Bronny James — whose collegiate career was disrupted by a frightening heart attack that revealed a congenital heart defect — sparked backlash. But James said in September that the chance to play alongside his son, and his role in helping the United States defend their Olympic title in Paris, had reinvigorated him.
“Gives you a lot of life,” James said, and that’s surely just what the Lakers wanted to hear from the player who signed a new two-year contract worth a reported $100 million in July. Whether he’ll go on that long remains to be seen. James’s interests off the court are constantly expanding. As a partner in the Fenway Sports Group that owns Liverpool FC, James has shares in the English Premiership club as well as Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox and the National Hockey League’s Pittsburgh Penguins. His entertainment firm, the SpringHill Company, has made him a player in Hollywood, and Forbes estimates that James is the first basketball player to become a billionaire ($1.2 billion) during his career. When his playing days are over, James has said, he wants to become an NBA owner, preferably in Las Vegas.
– Sustained excellence –
But first there’s the pursuit of a fifth title. James won back-to-back titles with the Miami Heat in 2012 and 2013, then returned to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers and led them to the crown in 2016. But he hasn’t won a ring since 2020, when the Lakers triumphed in the league’s “Covid bubble” in Orlando. The Lakers have since been disappointing, reaching the Western Conference Finals in 2023, but being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs last spring.
They have struggled to build momentum this season and James looked his age as he battled through a shooting slump that saw him miss all 19 of his three-point attempts in one four-game stretch. He has also missed games with a foot injury and illness and seen his points in the paint and efficiency in transition diminish. But James delivered a classic on Christmas Day, scoring 31 points and handing out 10 assists as the Lakers edged the Golden State Warriors. Redick sounds in awe of James’s ability to keep rising to the demands of the game. “For guys like him …the Tom Bradys of the world, the Roger Federers of the world, it’s hard to comprehend having that level of sustained excellence for so long because of the toll that it takes on all of you, not just on your body.”
© 2024 AFP
