Lebron enters season 21: What other NBA players have played 20 years or more?
Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James is entering his 21st year in the NBA this season, a milestone that very few players have achieved in the league.
Performance is one thing, longevity is another. With that in mind, there are only a select few in the NBA who have been blessed with both. Here, we take a look at those elite players who have managed to stretch their careers across two decades or more.
LeBron James joins the 21-year-club
This year, Los Angeles Lakers star forward LeBron James will be joining the ranks of an exclusive club as he heads into his 21st season in the league. In such a fast-paced and physically challenging game, not many are able to last two decades in the NBA as the sport takes a big toll on an athlete’s body.
Nonetheless, a handful have managed to hold off the ravages of time as well as evade career-ending injuries to be able to stay on the court for 20 years or more. Coming into the 2023-24 season, there are only nine players who have managed to play for this long.
Vince Carter, the most seasons of them all
The person who has had the longest career in the NBA is Vince Carter, who played for 22 seasons. The eight-time All-Star first played with the Toronto Raptors in 1998, and was named the 1999 NBA Rookie of the Year. He last played with the Atlanta Hawks, and announced his retirement in June of 2020.
Following Carter are four men who played for 21 years in the NBA.
The 21-year club
As mentioned before, ‘King James’ will now be joining an elite group that includes four other players. There is the Timberwolves legened, Kevin Garnett, known as one of the best power forwards in league history, who was drafted straight out of high school by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1995. After a few years playing with the Boston Celtics and the Brooklyn Nets, he closed out his career back with Minnesota. Dirk Nowitzki is another member. The German was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks as the ninth pick overall in the 1998 NBA Draft, and was immediately traded to the Dallas Mavericks, with whom he played his entire NBA career from 1998 to 2019.
Center Robert Parish was drafted by Golden State Warriors in the 1976 draft, moved to the Boston Celtics, then the Charlotte Hornets, before playing his last season for the Chicago Bulls and wining the championship with them in 1997, making him the oldest player to win a title at 43. There is also Kevin Willis, who was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks in 1984 and stayed with them for ten years. He then played for various teams until he retired in 2007 with the Dallas Mavericks.
Two decades of greatness
Following the ‘21 Club’, we’ve got four other basketball greats who played for 20 seasons- Los Angeles Lakers legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the late Kobe Bryant, three-time NBA Sixth Man of the Year awardee Jamal Crawford, and Udonis Haslem of the Miami Heat.