LOS ANGELES \u2014 LeBron James has begun his unprecedented 23rd NBA season, starting for the Los Angeles Lakers against Utah on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
The 40-year-old James had been sidelined since the start of training camp by\u00a0sciatica, keeping him out of the preseason and the Lakers’ first 14 games of the regular season. James, who had never before missed a season opener,\u00a0returned to contact basketball activity\u00a0last week before participating in\u00a0his first Lakers practice\u00a0of the new season Monday.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
With this debut, James is now just 48 games behind Parish’s NBA record for regular-season games played (1,611)
\n
James already holds another NBA record with 1,855 regular-season and playoff games combined \u2014 58 more than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar \u2014 along with the record for most total minutes played
\n
James became\u00a0the top scorer in NBA history\u00a0in February 2023
\n
Last March, he became the first NBA player\u00a0to put up 50,000 total points\u00a0in the regular season and playoffs combined<\/p>\n
About 30 minutes before tipoff, the team confirmed James would start for the 1,561st time in his 1,563rd regular-season games. He got a loud ovation when he was announced first in the Lakers\u2019 starting lineup.<\/p>\n
He made a poor inbounds pass for a turnover in the opening minute and missed his only shot of the quarter, but James also had two assists. He checked out 5 1\/2 minutes into the quarter and sat on his usual elevated seat on the Lakers\u2019 bench before returning to the court late in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
James said Monday that his body isn’t in ideal game shape, but he was eager to get started on his latest milestone achievement in a career packed with distinction.<\/p>\n
A day later, James formally became the first player ever to\u00a0participate in 23 NBA seasons.<\/p>\n
Vince Carter played in 22 seasons in a career that concluded in 2020, while five players have made it through 21 seasons: Robert Parish, Kevin Willis, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki and 40-year-old Chris Paul, who currently plays for the Los Angeles Clippers. Philadelphia guard Kyle Lowry is in his 20th season.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeBron is, for a lot of us that played with him, or some of these guys that grew up watching him, he\u2019s a superhero,\u201d said Lakers coach JJ Redick, who played 15 NBA seasons. \u201cWhat he\u2019s been able to do in this game, there\u2019s a handful of guys that have been able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
With this debut, James is now just 48 games behind Parish’s NBA record for regular-season games played (1,611). James already holds another NBA record with 1,855 regular-season and playoff games combined \u2014 58 more than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar \u2014 along with the record for most total minutes played.<\/p>\n
James has repeatedly said\u00a0he isn\u2019t assuming this season will be his last, but he also hasn’t decided whether he\u2019ll play another year. His most recent offseason was injury-plagued, with two months of recovery after spraining his knee ligament during the Lakers’ first-round playoff loss to Minnesota followed by a painful bout of sciatica \u2014 pain in the nerves running from the buttocks and down the back of the legs.<\/p>\n
James became\u00a0the top scorer in NBA history\u00a0in February 2023. Last March, he became the first NBA player\u00a0to put up 50,000 total points\u00a0in the regular season and playoffs combined.<\/p>\n
James is a four-time NBA champion, winning the NBA Finals MVP award each time. He has four league MVP awards and 21 All-Star selections.<\/p>\n
His career began with the Cleveland Cavaliers in October 2003, a year before the birth of his oldest son and current Lakers teammate, Bronny James.<\/p>\n
James led the Lakers to the franchise’s 17th championship in the Florida bubble in 2020. Los Angeles made the Western Conference finals again in 2023, and it won the Pacific Division title last spring\u00a0after acquiring Luka Doncic, James’ self-described favorite current player, near midseason.<\/p>\n
The Lakers also hosted the Jazz when\u00a0Doncic debuted with his new team\u00a0Feb. 10.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles’ next game isn’t until Sunday \u2014 also against the Jazz in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 LeBron James has begun his unprecedented 23rd NBA season, starting for the Los Angeles Lakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[4725,4727,112843,1014,6643,49,3335,48,266,5407,112844,459,24783,82,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-292552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-all-markets-rank-everywhere","9":"tag-app-for-your-consideration","10":"tag-app-professional-sports","11":"tag-app-sports","12":"tag-associated-press","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-california","15":"tag-canada","16":"tag-hawaii","17":"tag-lakers","18":"tag-los-angeles-app-region","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-professional-basketball","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}