At 40, LeBron says he could play at high level 5-7 more years -- but won't - ESPN

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The gray in LeBron James' beard was unmistakable as he addressed reporters on his 40th birthday Monday after Los Angeles Lakers practice.

«I had a decade of the thirties so to just wake up and just be like, 'Oh shoot, oh damn, you're 40?'» James said, back with the team after missing Saturday's game against the Sacramento Kings while recovering from an illness. «It's kind of laughable, really, to know where I am, to see where I am still playing the game at a high level, still being such a young man but old in the scheme of how many years I got in this profession.»

James, who was the youngest player in league history to reach scoring plateaus at 1,000 through 40,000 career points, is now just the second to play 22 seasons, tying Hall of Famer Vince Carter.

And when he faces his former team in the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday, he will become just the 32nd player ever to appear in an NBA game in his forties, according to ESPN Research.

While James admitted that he has «of course» pondered retirement more than ever before, the four-time champion — fresh off a gold medal run with Team USA at the Paris Olympics, winning tournament MVP — said he could play a lot longer, should he so choose.

«To be honest, if I really wanted to, I could probably play this game at a high level probably for about another — it's weird that I might say this — but probably about another 5-7 years, if I wanted to,» James said. «But I'm not going to do that.»

James' production this season would support that claim. He is averaging 23.5 points on 49.6% shooting, 9.0 assists and 7.9 rebounds a night, while appearing in 28 out of the Lakers' 31 games.

When he was approaching Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time scoring record during the