As LeBron James enters the third decade of his career, he's going to continue to bump up against all sorts of age-related benchmarks. He'll likely become the first player in NBA history to pass 40,000 points sometime this season and he's already well on his way to the most productive campaign ever for a player this late in his career.
And Tuesday night after a win against the Utah Jazz, he was shocked (and amused) to find out that he's older than Will Hardy, the Jazz's head coach.
LeBron James was born on Dec. 30, 1984, which means Hardy is not the only coach younger than LeBron.
Mark Daigneault, current coach of the Thunder, was born on Aug. 12, 1985, making him 225 days younger than LeBron. Joe Mazzulla of the Celtics, the youngest coach in the NBA, is also three years and six months younger than LeBron.
So LeBron is old than three current NBA head coaches and just barely younger than two others.
Taylor Jenkins of the Grizzlies was born on Sep. 12, 1984, meaning he is only 109 days older than LeBron. Willie Green, of the Pelicans, was just three years old and likely hadn't started kindergarten when LeBron was born.
Which players were born after LeBron James began his NBA career?
Rolling through his 21st NBA season, we also have a slew of players in the league who were born after LeBron played his first game for the Cavaliers on Oct. 29, 2003. As of today, there are 19 players who have played at least one game during the 2023-24 season and were born after LeBron's pro debut.
That means there are four teams that have multiple players born after LeBron's debut — the Spurs (2), Trail Blazers (2), Charlotte Hornets (2) and Utah Jazz (3). This number could go up as the season goes on. Dariq Whitehead (Nets), Noah Clowney (Nets) and Jordan Walsh (Celtics) were all born after LeBron's debut. They were each selected in the 2023 NBA Draft and made an NBA roster, they just haven't seen the court yet.
