NBA milestones for players in their 40s

NBA milestones for players in their 40s

LeBron James, who turns 40 on December 30, is currently the oldest player in the NBA.

• Get NBA League Pass TODAY

LeBron James turns 40 on Mondayand the Los Angeles Lakers star is about to join a small list of NBA players who have played in the league at that age.

A look at some statistical milestones for players in their 40s in NBA history:

40 points at 40 points

There has only been one 40-point game by a 40-year-old in NBA history. This milestone belongs to Michael Jordan.

On February 21, 2003, four days after his 40th birthday, Jordan scored 43 points for Washington in an 89-86 victory over New Jersey.

There have only been seven games with 30 or more points by players after they turned 40 – Jordan has four of them, while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone and Dirk Nowitzki all have one. Abdul-Jabbar and Malone’s came in playoff games.


Triple double

Like 40-point games, triple-doubles are extremely rare for 40-year-olds – only one has ever been 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 November 28, 2003.

Double-doubles are far more common among 40-year-olds. There have been 95 of them 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.


Total points after 40

James will catapult this list to the top.

Excluding Tim Duncan and Danny Schayes – both of whom played playoff games at age 40 but never regular season competition – there have been 29 players who scored 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 – did not score a total of more than 21 points after turning 40. James could overtake them all in one go.

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 this age.


LeBron won’t be the oldest

James is currently the oldest player in the NBA, but it’s safe to say he won’t set the record as the oldest player in NBA history.

He has to play for six more years.

The oldest man to ever play in an NBA game was Nat Hickey, who played two games for the Providence Steamrollers on January 27 and 28, 1948. Hickey played the second of these games two days before 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 play. And he never played again.


40 in the final

In the last two decades, there has only been one player to play in an NBA Finals game in his 40s. That would be Miami’s Udonis Haslem, who was two days shy of his 43rd birthday when he played in a Heat game in the 2023 title series against Denver.

Before him, Karl Malone was the last 40-year-old in the final in 2004.


An average night

The average game for a player starting at age 40: 6.6 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.4 assists.

This should be a standard James top every night. His average game as a 30-year-old: 26.5 points, 8.0 rebounds, 8.1 assists.


Who’s next?

After James, the next NBA player to turn 40 will be San Antonio’s Chris Paul – who reaches the milestone on May 6. He would likely need to participate in a second round playoff appearance to play this age 40 season.

Charlotte’s Taj Gibson turns 40 on June 24, so he would have to come back next season to play at that age.

The next from there would be Philadelphia’s Kyle Lowry, who turns 40 on March 25, 2026, and would be playing at that age when he returns for his 20th year next season.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *