LeBron James turns 40 on Monday, and the Los Angeles Lakers star is about to join a small list of NBA players who have been in the league at that age.
A look at some statistical milestones for players in their 40s in NBA history:
There’s been only one 40-point game by a 40something in NBA history. That milestone belongs to by Michael Jordan.
On Feb. 21, 2003, four days after turning 40, Jordan scored 43 points for Washington in an 89-86 win over New Jersey.
There have been only seven games of 30 points or more by players after they turn 40 — Jordan has four of them, while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone and Dirk Nowitzki all have one. The ones by Abdul-Jabbar and Malone came in playoff games.
Like 40-point games, triple doubles are extremely rare for 40-year-olds — with just one ever recorded in the league.
Karl Malone had it: 10 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists for the Los Angeles Lakers in a 103-87 win over San Antonio on Nov. 28, 2003.
Double-doubles are way more common for 40somethings. There’s been 95 of those over the years: John Stockton had 23, Robert Parish had 22, Malone had 21, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had 14, Michael Jordan had eight, Dikembe Mutombo had five, and Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki each had one.
James is going to vault up this list.
Not counting Tim Duncan and Danny Schayes — they both played playoff games at 40, but never a regular season contest — there have been 29 players to score in the NBA after their 40th birthday.
And eight of those players — Juwan Howard, Charles Jones, Rick Mahorn, Charles Oakley, Bob Cousy, Jamal Crawford, Nat Hickey and Joe Johnson — scored no more than 21 points, total, after turning 40. James might pass them all in one game.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has the most points after turning 40: He scored 1,941. Only he, Robert Parish (1,706), Vince Carter (1,433) and John Stockton (1,088) have more than 1,000 points at that age.
James is the oldest player in the NBA right now, but it’s probably safe to say that he won’t set the record as the oldest in NBA history.
He’ll have to play six more years to do that.
The oldest man to play in an NBA game was Nat Hickey, who got into two games with the Providence Steamrollers on Jan. 27 and 28, 1948. Hickey played the second of those games two days shy of his 46th birthday.
He was 0 for 6 from the field and 2 for 3 from the foul line. In his second game, he was charged with four fouls in three minutes of playing time. And he never played again.
There’s been only one player in the last two decades to play in an NBA Finals game in his 40s. That would be Miami’s Udonis Haslem, who was two days from turning 43 when he played in a Heat game in the 2023 title series against Denver.
Before him, the most recent 40something in the finals was Karl Malone in 2004.
The average game for a player once he turns 40: 6.6 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.4 assists.
That should be a standard James tops on a nightly basis. His average game as a 30something: 26.5 points, 8.0 rebounds, 8.1 assists.
After James, the next NBA player to turn 40 will be San Antonio’s Chris Paul — who hits the milestone on May 6. He’d have to probably be part of a second-round playoff run to play at 40 this season.
Charlotte’s Taj Gibson turns 40 on June 24, so he’d have to come back next season to play at that age.
The next one from there would be Philadelphia’s Kyle Lowry, who turns 40 on March 25, 2026 and would play at that age if he comes back for a 20th year next season.
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