Happy birthday, LeBron! With 40 just around the corner, you beat Father Time
LeBron, happy birthday! It’s your 39th Saturday, and where does the time go?
I looked up an article I wrote from an interview I did with you in 2008.
“I lose sight of the fact of how young I am,” you told me then. “When rookies come on your team and they’re 20 years old, I call them youngsters, and I’m only 23 years old.”
That your oldest son Bronny, 19, is as close to 23 today as you are to 43 is mind-bending.
I won’t call you old. But you’re no longer young. Some of these youngsters in the NBA today were just born when you entered the league in 2003.
And you’re still producing at an All-NBA level for the Los Angeles Lakers.
It’s amazing and unprecedented.
For years, you’ve said “Father Time is undefeated.” I’m beginning to think it was all a setup, a little Muhammad Ali Rope-A-Dope. You even went as far as to do a commercial with Jason Momoa playing Father Time.
Lately, your sentiment has changed. “Just trying to push the limit. See how far I can take this thing. It’s me vs. Father Time. I’m trying to change the narrative,” you said in late November.
Then, a couple of weeks later in early December you said of Father Time: “I’m trying to give him one loss.”
Let’s just call it:
You beat Father Time.
To do what you’ve done, at the level you’ve done it, for the amount of years you’ve done it is a victory over Father Time.
During a recent game, TNT flashed a stat of how many points Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, Robert Parish and Kevin Garnett averaged in their 21st seasons. Carter had the highest points per game at 7.4.
This season, your 21st, you are at 25.1 points, 7.6 rebounds. 7.4 assists and 1.4 steals per game – right around your career averages of 27.2, 7.5, 7.3 and 1.5. And you’re shooting 53.9% from the field and 41.3% on 3-pointers, percentages that are among your career highs.
No player has averaged at least 25 points past the age of 36. Except you, LeBron. You’ve done it the two previous seasons and are on pace to do it again this season.
You continue to put distance between you and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. You will reach 40,000 points most likely later this season. No active player is at 30,000 points, and while Kevin Durant, 35, is in the top 10, he’s still 2,300 points from 30,000.
We know most records don’t last forever so someone will threaten your all-time scoring record someday. Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic may make a run at it. If Doncic played 70 games a season and scored 28 points per game, he wouldn’t reach 40,000 points until his 20th season – in 2037-38.
Looking ahead to next season, no player 40 or older has averaged at least 20 points and unless there’s a drastic decline in your game – and that’s difficult to see that happening – you’re going to do that.
And next year at this time, you will shoot for the rare 40 For 40. Michael Jordan is the only player to score at least 40 points at 40 or older. You just scored 40 against Oklahoma City a week ago. You have one of those in you next season.
That is, if you keep playing. You had a minor existential crisis when you and the Lakers lost to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference final in May and you wondered if it was time to retire from the NBA.
“I was exhausted. I was tired. Mentally, I was in too many different places,” you explained at the start of the season. “And that’s what drew that comment or that statement. Because that’s just how I felt at the moment. But I’m happy to be returning for another season and helping this team, hopefully, get this team to the Finals. That’s just the goal.”
However, you wouldn’t commit to playing beyond this season other than to say, “I feel like I got a lot more in the tank to give.”
You have said you’d like to be in the league when and if your oldest son Bronny made it to the NBA. But he had a health scare with sudden cardiac arrest and was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in the summer. A life-altering event changes perspectives.
Time is a fascinating concept. Where did it go? How do I get more? Time takes forever and goes by in a blink. A billion years ago and a billion from now are unfathomable.
But LeBron, it seems you have a sound grasp of getting the most out of the time you have.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LeBron James turns 39: Lakers star still NBA's all-time leading scorer
