The best soups are made in old pots. A somewhat truncated maxim that it is important to correct. It’s not in old pots that the best soups are made, proof of which is that a young basketball player will eventually always be more coveted than a man, but old pots can still make excellent soups. All the importance of a good shade.
Is LeBron James the ultimate sportsman? 38 years old today, 1000 lives confined to one, and a career that doesn’t die down one bit. His collective situation isn’t ideal: The Lakers are 13th in the Western Conference with a record of 14 wins, 21 losses. I’m not sure, however, whether it’s LeBron’s performance that keeps the Boeing Lakers down. On the contrary, they weigh in the good sense of the word. With what other 38-year-old basketball player (this criterion alone eliminates many people), with 19 NBA seasons in his back, is still averaging 27.8 points on 50% shooting, 8.8 rebounds, 6.6 assists and 1.1 interceptions? All despite having played 27 of the 35 games of this first part of the season? Nobody. If we want to find a longevity brother in LeBron, we have to extend the search to other sports, and then some doors could open. “Yes but TrashTalk, in basketball there was Kevin Willis who played until he was 44! “. Not the same impact, the team wasn’t designed around him. He was an experienced player, good for the locker room and for his freelancers off the bench. He stopped scoring above 10 points at the age of 37 (and lost his starting status at the same time). Nothing to do with the centerpiece that is still LeBron James. All vioc, even those who have known a first at 30 points on average, they have collapsed under the weight of age. Wilt Chamberlain at 37? Averaged 13.2 points and 18.6 rebounds. Not the most violent decadence, but in his own way a collapse.
Roger Federer
That’s why it’s nice to immerse yourself in tennis, with the ancestral stone of a legendary trio. This sport is played in pairs with rackets and yellow balls the size of a small hedgehog. At 38, Roger Federer has managed to stay at 3rd degree of the ATP world ranking, before spending a start of 2020 not at the top (more operations than tournaments played). Deep down we felt it was the end, but the Swiss made the pleasure last by pushing himself to his last trenches. Third player in the world at 38: do we realize? Don’t make fun of us too much since we don’t know anything about tennis, but congratulations all the same. To see if even Nadal (36) and Djokovic (35) won’t always be good clients in a few years.
Floyd Mayweather
Win “fight of the century” at 38 sending daron rights up Manny Pacquiao, we can say that Mayweather has good longevity. Even there we don’t know much about boxing (can we stamp our feet?) but we live enough in society to remember the excitement around this fight. Rumors spoke of huge sums for both boxers, like 80 million for Pacquiao and 120 for Mayweather (it’s verified). Kind of funny to go and get the biggest wad of his career at the very end. Again it shows the difference in interpretation of age depending on the sport. An old boxing legend who still moves well remains an exceptional dish (in this case he moved very well). While a Dwight Howard eventually you send him to other countries to see if there are any.
Tom Brady
He won the 2015 Super Bowl when… 37 years. This old ball thrower isn’t making it easy for us. Vaaaaa is the year of his 38th birthday. We can make an exception not to snub one of the most impressive longevity athletes in the solar system. Especially as he will still be Superbowl winner and MVP at 39 years. Just enough to definitely make us sweat. The quarterback position isn’t the most physical there is, it allows the old guys to push the retirement age a little (we don’t know, let’s talk nonsense), but Tom’s passes Brady… View sweet, bell shaped, distributed with incredible precision and from far, far away (we say things at random). Nice mention for Barry Bonds and Peyton Manning who could have also appeared in this selection.
Ryan Giggs
The daron of your daron. to argue a 25-game Premier League season for 2 goals and 8 assists at 38 and with creaking joints, the feat is crazy. We could have stalled Francesco Totti in his place, who was still scoring in the Champions League at the same age, but the English league has its reasons that reason ignores and we don’t want to justify ourselves, that’s all. Also Ryan Giggs is Welsh and there is a dragon on the flag of Wales, but in Swedish mythology the dragon is considered the personification of immortality. We are in the theme (everything is false).
Sue Bird
Best point guard in WNBA history, still averaged 10 points and 7 assists at 38, champion the previous season, re-champion at 39 Berges, absolute legend of the Seattle storm. The great lady retired last September at the age of 41, when honestly her stats weren’t pushing her towards the exit. Funny to think that she could have continued for a few more years in one of the most physical women’s sports leagues in the world. But the craziest accomplishment is that Sue Bird never started a single game of her WNBA career on the bench: 580 games, 580 starts, even in her senior year at 41. Better to kneel than die on her feet, or something.
Valentino Rossi
What a crazy Valentine. In 2017, the year before the World Championship in Russia, even if it has nothing to do with it, the motorcycle sponsor Dainese signs his last Grand Prix win at the age of 38, on one of his favorite circuits in Assen, the Netherlands. Big points at 548km/h (not at all) and arms raised at the finish, happy to win on an extremely high plateau as she flirts with his forty-year-old. The legend never dieseven if he suddenly won’t win again after that.
Jaromir Jagr
He started his NHL career in 90 and ended it in… 2018. Possibly The athlete with the most impressive longevity. In early December he even put his skates in the Czech first division with his own club. His age? 50 years. The boy is somewhat different from the criterion of this selection, he offers himself a second career after his 38 years. He must smell like seal under his suit.
Serena Williams
Tennis is over for this great lady, except that in 2020, two years before retiring, Serena Williams won his only title for three years. She was in Auckland, New Zealand, and with one stone two incredible actions, the tennis player then decided to donate her $ 43,000 check to the victims of the bushfires in eastern Australia. There you go, you can slap yourself a little more before putting your racket back (and it’s been a while since you’ve won), but you’d rather give everything for the good cause. We applaud him loudly *clap clap clap*.
Benjamin Nivet
A picture is worth a thousand words.
