LeBron James is not necessarily old. But in the context of the NBA, he is.
The 38-year-old was reminded of that fact again Tuesday night as the Los Angeles Lakers made league history with a 131-99 victory over the Utah Jazz to sweep the group stages of the inaugural in-season tournament.
Anthony Davis led the Lakers in scoring with 26 points and 16 rebounds. At the same time, James’ 17 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds are NBA milestones. Early in the first quarter, he became the first player in league history to score more than 39,000 career points. He has become the league’s scoring leader, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 38,387 points last season.
James had a brief moment to enjoy the moment.
“I haven’t had a chance to really understand what that means,” James later told reporters. “There’s been a lot of great players in this league since the beginning, a lot of great scorers. To be able to do the first thing in anything, I think that’s always cool. It’s a crazy time, it’s Of course.”
Later, a reporter asked the NBA veteran if he knew he was older than Jazz head coach Will Hardy (35 years old).
“Who am I older?” James said in surprise.
Finally, he gave a thumbs up to the reporter, who was shocked by the reaction.
“Yeah, that’s a good thing. You made me understand,” James said. “too crazy.”
The kid from Akron has come a long way since making his NBA debut as an 18-year-old in Sacramento 20 years ago. He wasn’t the youngest player in the league at the time. That title went to Darko Miličić, the second overall pick in the 2003 draft.
But now, James is the oldest player in the league. Udonis Haslem and Andre Iguodala beat him last season at 43 and 39 years old respectively.
James acknowledged his latest scoring milestone on Instagram Wednesday morning. “Top 2, I’m not 2. 1 of 1!” he wrote before sharing a video of himself realizing his age on Tuesday night.
James is expected to break one of Abdul-Jabbar’s records again this season.
In the 1985-86 season, the captain averaged 23.4 points per game. He was 39 years old at the time and set a record for the league’s oldest player to average points per game in a single season. James averaged 20.9 points per game in his rookie season and has never dropped below that mark since. He averaged 28.9 points per game last season and is averaging 25.7 points per game so far this season.