LeBron James is incombustible. He has defined a generation of basketball, or several, by breaking another NBA record: last night, he become the player with most minutes played in history. Exactly 57,447 minutes in 1,517 games played.
Last night, James played 34 minutes in the 113-100 victory against Sacramento Kings, and scored 19 points, six rebounds and seven assists. By his tenth minute, he had already broken that all-time record, previously held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Abdul-Jabbar played for 20 years, from 1969 to 1975 in Milwaukee Bucks and from 1975 to 1989 in Los Angeles Lakers, becoming NBA champion six times, five of those with Lakers, and being named MVP 6 times, among many other highlights.
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When he retired, Abdul-Jabbar had played 57,446 minutes. It took 35 years for someone to surpass that mark. The rest of the ranking is made up of Karl Malone (54,852), Dirk Nowitzki (51,368) and Kevin Garnett (50,418) round out the top five.
James said that his record "It's just a commitment to the craft and to the passion and love I have for the game. I didn't take much time in the offseason, no matter if I was making the 10 Finals appearances back to back and just always trying to keep my body in tip-top shape".
NBA shared the rest of the top 8 players with more minutes played, and James is the only one active. He turns 40 on December 30, he is not as strong as he used to be, but he is still in shape, so who knows how many more minutes, or even seasons, he has left.