LeBron James has spent 21 years in the NBA and has seen most of his old colleagues become media personalities and coaches now. In fact, eight active head coaches have played against LeBron. One of those coaches is Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn, who reflected on LeBron’s career while discussing this unique stat.
“It just reveals how smart he is, that’s all that does. I think it’s underappreciated the fact that stat and that he’s still playing at a high level, still the face of a franchise, still putting points on the board, and being one of the smartest players in the league. You give him an extreme amount of credit. That’s a great stat. He should have a lot of ownership of that. For me, it’s a privilege I got a chance to play against him.
Nets coach Jacque Vaughn on being one of the eight current NBA head coaches to have played against LeBron James and are now coaching against him: pic.twitter.com/XPapSdbaAY
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 20, 2024
James has played against Chauncey Billups (Portland Trail Blazers), Willie Green (New Orleans Pelicans), Adrian Griffin Sr. (Milwaukee Bucks), Darvin Ham (Los Angeles Lakers), Jason Kidd (Dallas Mavericks), Tyronn Lue (Los Angeles Clippers), and Ime Udoka (Houston Rockets), along with Vaughn.
Given James has played against 35% of all players in NBA history, it shouldn’t be a surprise that many of the former players in the NBA right now coached against him. if he plays for a few more seasons, there’s a big chance this list increases. Steve Nash never returned to coaching after being fired by the Nets in 2022 while Rajon Rondo has been rumored to make a switch to coaching as well.
LeBron James Is The Perfect Example Of Longevity
Up until LeBron’s recent excellence, the concept of longevity was hard to understand. Vince Carter was hailed for making it to 22 seasons while players like Dirk Nowitzki and Kobe Bryant are also remembered for the lengths of their careers. But the only example of a high-performing player late into his career was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who stayed competing for titles till he retired.
Even though Kareem wasn’t impacting the game like LeBron is, arguably still the primary option on his Lakers squad despite being 39 years old and having played the most minutes in NBA history. Jason Kidd recently said that children should study James as an example to figure out how to extend their careers like him.
“It’s LeBron… if you were a betting man, you would bet with him against Father Time. Just the things that he’s done, it just doesn’t look like he gets tired, he understands the game at a high level, he’s shooting the three very well, and he just lets the game come to him. It just shows our youth that if you understand the game you can play for a long time. And hopefully, our youth is watching.”
LeBron is averaging 24.7 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 7.6 assists this season but the Lakers have a shaky 21-21 record. Their next game is against Vaughn and the Nets, so everyone will be watching to see if they can extend their current winning streak to three games or if the Nets pick up their second win in 2023 at the expense of LA.
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