LOS ANGELES — LeBron James sprinted down the court in the first quarter Tuesday, now a 41-year-old freight train barreling down the tracks toward the rim closest to the Los Angeles Lakers’ bench.

He caught the pass from Marcus Smart halfway between midcourt and the 3-point line, dribbled once and changed direction from the right side of the hoop to the left, training his eyes on the rim before softly laying up the ball off the backboard and through the hoop.

As he has forever, James showed off the divinely given combination of size and speed with his tirelessly earned skills. That combination has made James, at worst, the second-best player ever to touch an NBA court, and the arguments for him to be at the top of any list won’t cause you any strain.

Because Tuesday, even in a 128-106 loss to the Detroit Pistons, James became the best player ever to hoop in this league at 41, the age he turned on Monday. Last season, he was the best at doing it at 40. And 39 before that, and 38 before that.

Now, more than ever, that doesn’t feel like enough. Not for these Lakers. Their needs are immediate. Legacy has zero to do with guarding at the point of attack or an athletic deficit that’s been painfully obvious over a string of double-digit losses.

But James, especially on his birthday, is inescapable — the breadth of what he’s already accomplished so easily contrasted with what he can still possibly give.

And the Lakers have to know that the answer to the latter — at least nightly — can’t solve all their problems.

James’ greatness is still numbing, an entirely natural callusing having occurred from someone dominating games and discourse for 23 years. Since 2003, there’ve been so many one-handed dunks, so many step-back 3s, so many chasedown blocks and no-look passes that his birthday, particularly in these last chapters of his career, has been the perfect time to take a step back and celebrate.

How lucky are we to live in a time like this, when an athlete can push himself to these limits? How lucky are we to get to witness someone take on a fight against time that he’s guaranteed to eventually lose without kicking time’s butt a whole bunch first? How lucky are we to see a standard being set in real time — the most remarkable and longest career in league history — unfold without feeling like a gimmick?

If you saw him score 43 against the Portland Trail Blazers a day after he turned 37 or 47 against the Atlanta Hawkson the night he turned 38, you’d swear that aging was more of an idea than a guarantee. A day after he turned 39, James scored 34 against the New Orleans Pelicans on the second night of a back-to-back, and shortly after his 40th birthday, he opened 2025 with 38 points and eight assists.

All this happened with James and the Lakers in uncharted territory with one another — the wording the team and those close to James have used seemingly intentionally for Year 23.

No one has ever been his age and still this good, worthy of max dollars and a real investment in the talent around him. However, for the Lakers, the math was more challenging. How could they, as an organization tasked with building both for the future and the present, exhaust their limited assets in support of a player who is discovering new territory each time he steps on the floor?