LOS ANGELES — LeBron James sprinted down the court in the first quarter Tuesday, now a 41-year-old freight train barreling down the tracks toward the rim closest to the Los Angeles Lakers’ bench.
He caught the pass from Marcus Smart halfway between midcourt and the 3-point line, dribbled once and changed direction from the right side of the hoop to the left, training his eyes on the rim before softly laying up the ball off the backboard and through the hoop.
As he has forever, James showed off the divinely given combination of size and speed with his tirelessly earned skills. That combination has made James, at worst, the second-best player ever to touch an NBA court, and the arguments for him to be at the top of any list won’t cause you any strain.
Because Tuesday, even in a 128-106 loss to the Detroit Pistons, James became the best player ever to hoop in this league at 41, the age he turned on Monday. Last season, he was the best at doing it at 40. And 39 before that, and 38 before that.
Now, more than ever, that doesn’t feel like enough. Not for these Lakers. Their needs are immediate. Legacy has zero to do with guarding at the point of attack or an athletic deficit that’s been painfully obvious over a string of double-digit losses.
But James, especially on his birthday, is inescapable — the breadth of what he’s already accomplished so easily contrasted with what he can still possibly give.
And the Lakers have to know that the answer to the latter — at least nightly — can’t solve all their problems.
James’ greatness is still numbing, an entirely natural callusing having occurred from someone dominating games and discourse for 23 years. Since 2003, there’ve been so many one-handed dunks, so many step-back 3s, so many chasedown blocks and no-look passes that his birthday, particularly in these last chapters of his career, has been the perfect time to take a step back and celebrate.
How lucky are we to live in a time like this, when an athlete can push himself to these limits? How lucky are we to get to witness someone take on a fight against time that he’s guaranteed to eventually lose without kicking time’s butt a whole bunch first? How lucky are we to see a standard being set in real time — the most remarkable and longest career in league history — unfold without feeling like a gimmick?
If you saw him score 43 against the Portland Trail Blazers a day after he turned 37 or 47 against the Atlanta Hawkson the night he turned 38, you’d swear that aging was more of an idea than a guarantee. A day after he turned 39, James scored 34 against the New Orleans Pelicans on the second night of a back-to-back, and shortly after his 40th birthday, he opened 2025 with 38 points and eight assists.
All this happened with James and the Lakers in uncharted territory with one another — the wording the team and those close to James have used seemingly intentionally for Year 23.
No one has ever been his age and still this good, worthy of max dollars and a real investment in the talent around him. However, for the Lakers, the math was more challenging. How could they, as an organization tasked with building both for the future and the present, exhaust their limited assets in support of a player who is discovering new territory each time he steps on the floor?
There’s a real nobility in seeing someone committed to maximizing what he can give to basketball and what he can get out of it, the attempt to push past boundaries and norms because of an unquestioned love for this game and the competition that fuels it.
That perspective, though, suddenly feels a little bit hollow, with James struggling to score 17 on his 41st birthday. There was limited reflection postgame, with no one, James included, willing to spend time in reverence or reflection. There’s been minimal celebration this season about his longevity — the focus shifted more on the franchise moving forward with Luka Dončić and less, if at all, on making the most of whatever James has left.
Even fans, who typically make James the leading vote-getter in All-Star balloting, seem to be fatigued. James was a distant 10th in the Western Conference early-voting totals released on Monday, more than 200,000 votes outside the top five.
Wrestling with all of that has taken a backseat in December to the Lakers’ very real, very immediate problems.
L.A., again, got spanked by a team that was younger, tougher and faster. The Lakers, again, had to live with the frustration that they didn’t have the athletes — James included — to stop any of it.
Again, they were short-handed. Rui Hachimura is out for a week with a calf strain, putting the team down another starter with Austin Reaves sitting for a month.
For his career, James has had so much “competitive stamina,” as coach JJ Redick has phrased it, that he’s been able to push through the mental and physical challenges that have arisen. Right now, the Lakers are facing both.
However, everyone has limits.
“I think there’s an external cost that comes with caring, and I think there’s also an internal cost,” Redick said before Tuesday’s game against the Pistons. “And that can be exhaustion, could be burnout, could be mental fatigue, physical fatigue, it can take any shape. That’s why you don’t see many, I don’t know about in other industries, but you don’t see many great athletes that can sustain it for as long as he sustained it.”
Asked after the game about his mental state as the Lakers (20-11) head into 2026 after losing seven of their last 12 games, James showed no signs of worry.
“I’m solid,” he said. “I’m living the dream.”
And of course, he was just one game removed from an efficiency masterpiece, 11-of-13 shooting from the field and 10 of 11 from the free-throw line in a 24-point night against the Sacramento Kings on Sunday.
After that game, his final as a 40-year-old, James referenced a 2022 Nike ad campaign in which he battled “Father Time.”
“I’m in a battle with him,” James said that night. “And I would like to say that I’m kicking his a– on the back nine.”
On Tuesday, after losing to the Pistons, he was less defiant as he answered a question about advice to his younger self.
“Just go out and just have fun. Enjoy the ride. ’Cause you never know when it comes to an end,” he said. “So it goes fast.”
Between now and whenever that end comes, there will undoubtedly be more moments to marvel at what James is doing on the court, the dunks that old legs shouldn’t be able to produce, the feats of strength that power through defenders who weren’t even born when he entered the NBA. He’ll set records for players his age and continue to distance himself from his peers in the ones he already holds.
As he turned 41, the focus around James has shifted. These birthdays have been cause to celebrate everything he’s done on the court. However, with the Lakers struggling against teams in the same ways, it was impossible not to think about all the things the Lakers and James aren’t.
There are problems, and he is unable to solve them.
And for James, that truly is something new.