MIAMI — The King has tied The Chief.
LeBron James started for the Los Angeles Lakers against the Miami Heat on Thursday night, making it the 1,611th regular-season game of his career and tying Robert Parish’s all-time NBA mark.
Parish — dubbed “Chief” during much of his playing career — held the record for nearly 30 years. It belongs now to James, someone who has had the “King” moniker for much of his basketball life and now has yet another record on what seems like an endless resume of accomplishment within the game.
And at 41, James isn’t slowing down. He had 19 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists in the Lakers’ 134-126 win — their eighth consecutive victory.
“I’ve always wanted to be available to my teammates, either in Cleveland, here, and now in LA,” James said at his stall in Miami’s visiting locker room after the game. “It takes a lot. I mean, it’s a mental toll, man, trying to play a lot.”
The games played mark is the latest entry on a long list of NBA records for James, who has the league’s all-time top spot in a number of categories including points scored, minutes played, field goals made and field goals attempted.
“I think he understands the importance of his position,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said Thursday. “And he talks all the time about not cheating the game and recognizing that he is one of the all-time greats. With that comes a lot of responsibility, and he does everything he can to live up to that responsibility.”
James is also the NBA record holder with 23 seasons played, 22 All-Star selections and 21 All-NBA team selections. He had a 1,297-game streak of double-digit regular season games snapped earlier this season.
“You just have to absolutely respect his level of competitive spirit,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He’s competing against not only the entire league, but he’s also competing against Father Time — and he’s giving Father Time hell.”
Hundreds of people lined up around the end of the court where James was shooting an hour before tip-off Thursday, many with their phones out, just to watch him warm up. James and the Lakers played in Houston on Wednesday night, landed in Miami at 3:59 a.m. Thursday and got to their hotel around 5:10 a.m.
James, Doncic and Austin Reaves — who combined for 84 points on Wednesday in the Lakers’ 124-116 win at Houston — were all on the injury report around midday Thursday for the Lakers. But Redick said he found out by mid-afternoon that James was among the players who decided Wednesday night to play despite the later-than-usual arrival time in Miami.
Doncic scored 60, James had a triple-double and Reaves scored 18 in the win in Miami.
“I think there’s just a high level of belief right now and they all want to play,” Redick said.
James went 13 of 14 from the field in Wednesday’s win, tying the best shooting performance of his NBA career.
James hit his right elbow on the court in the final minutes of Wednesday’s win, remaining down briefly and grimacing in obvious pain. The Lakers listed him originally as questionable for Thursday with left foot arthritis, but James arrived at the arena hours before the game, went through his normal routine, fought through fatigue and decided to play in Miami — a city he called home for four seasons, during which he won the first two of his four NBA championships.
“He’s doing so many impressive things,” Spoelstra said.
James will remain atop the games-played list for some time. He entered Thursday 310 games ahead of Russell Westbrook, who has the second-most among active players — and 310 games is nearly equal to four full seasons. Only 40 other players in the NBA right now have appeared in even half as many games as James has in his career.
It may have been fitting that James tied the mark in Miami. He still credits the Heat for helping him become the player he is now.
“I became a champion here, but I’ve always been a winner,” James said. “My first year ever playing sports, I won a little league football championship and a basketball championship. And then my second year, I repeated. I won three state championships in high school. I won a national championship in AAU basketball. …
“I’ve always been a winner. I come from a winning cloth, I come from winning basketball, so I’ve always been a winner, but this is the place that helped me get over the hump.”
Parish — who went into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003 — has been the outright leader in career games played since April 6, 1996. He played in game No. 1,561 that night, breaking a tie with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the all-time top spot.
Parish wound up playing 50 more regular-season games, then retired after the 1996-97 season. He started his NBA career with Golden State, then spent more than a decade with Boston before finishing his 21-season run with Charlotte and Chicago.
“No player is better deserving to break that Ironman record, that 1,611 games played record, than LeBron,” Parish told Sirius NBA Radio earlier this week. “He deserves it, in my opinion.”
James said he’s heard Parish’s comments, and that he appreciated the respect level in his words.
“Shout out Chief, man,” James said. “I’ve been seeing some of the things that he’s been saying about me. There’s not a lot of those OGs that talk like that to the generation after them and also about me personally. So, shout out to Chief.”