Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James celebrated his 40th birthday on Monday, which is pretty crazy to think about considering he is still one of the best players in the league.
Throughout the course of his 22-year-career, James has made close bonds with a number of players and coaches across the league.
Everyone came together to celebrate James’ birthday on Monday with Kevin Love, Chauncey Billups, Kyle Korver, Mike Brown and Steve Kerr notably recording videos for him, via Dave Mcmenamin of ESPN:
New video: ESPN collected 40th birthday greetings for LeBron James from a group of teammates and coaches from his past. pic.twitter.com/51avM8crX0
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) December 30, 2024
Bronny James and the other rookies on the Lakers also wished a happy birthday to the King at practice on Monday:
Bronny & the rookies sing Happy Birthday to Bron 🎂 pic.twitter.com/NvpYMBZrhI
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) December 31, 2024
There haven’t been many athletes that have kept up the level or greatness and longevity that LeBron has throughout his career, which is why his 40th birthday is an impressive milestone worth celebrating.
Even James himself did not think he would still be playing at this age.
Nah. Nah. Of course not,” LeBron said after practice on Monday. “I didn’t give myself a timetable of how long I was going to play the game. I just told myself I wanted to maximize the time that I had in the league and try to be as great as I could be whenever my time was done. But no. No. I would have never been able to say at 18 when I was drafted that I would still be playing in this league at 40.”
LeBron has always been someone that lives in the moment, but hopefully he can take a step back and appreciate everything he has accomplished in his first 40 years at some point.
LeBron James talks about how much longer he’ll play
Now as a 40-year-old, it’s natural for LeBron James to start contemplating when he will hang up his sneakers. He is still playing at an extremely high level for the Lakers though and believes he could play 5-7 more seasons if he wanted to, although that won’t be happening.
“It won’t be because I can’t play this game at a high level,” LeBron said. “Because to be honest if I really wanted to, I could probably play this game at a high level probably about another 5-7 years if I wanted to. But I’m not gonna do that.”
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