Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade is as qualified to speak on longevity in the NBA as much as almost anyone. He spent 16 seasons in the league, and from the time he entered the league until he decided to call it quits on his pro career, he was an impactful player.

Recently, Wade weighed in on the longevities of two people who are widely considered to be among the greatest basketball players of all time, former Chicago Bulls guard Michael Jordan and Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James. He made a comparison using Jordan’s stint with the Washington Wizards at the tail end of his pro career and James’ sustained success.

“No. I mean, M.J. averaged 20 when he came back, and he was STILL very good, but LeBron has stayed at a level that we haven’t seen,” Wade said. “The conversations of greatness—he makes it hard. All the older guys before were like, ‘It’s about Wilt [Chamberlain], it’s about Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], it’s about these guys,’ but because of his consistency. … I mean, he’s averaging 30 points per game in his 20th year in the league!”

Several years after helping the Bulls to another three-peat in the late 1990s, Jordan spent the 2001-02 and 2002-03 campaigns as a member of the Wizards organization and was still arguably an elite player. Across 142 total regular-season games played and 120 starts with Washington, he averaged 21.2 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.5 steals per contest.

What makes Jordan’s production with the Wizards particularly impressive is that he was quite long in the tooth at that point. For perspective, he was just over 40 years old when he played his final game in the league.

However, James is already older than Jordan was in his farewell game, and by all accounts, he’s having a more productive season in the 2024-25 campaign than Jordan ever did a Wizard.

Individually, James is stuffing the stat sheet with 24.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 8.5 assists per game. He’s shooting 51.2 percent from the field and 37.3 percent from 3-point range to boot.

The Lakers are also enjoying far more team success this season than the Wizards did in any season with Jordan on the squad. While Washington missed out on the playoffs in both of the seasons Jordan was on the team, the Lakers own the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference and could realistically rise all the way up to the No. 2 seed by the end of the campaign.

It should be interesting to see how much longer James can sustain this high level of play in the best basketball league in the world.

Patrick Beverley says he’s taking James Harden over Dwyane Wade

Many fans, athletes and analysts alike put Dwyane Wade as the third greatest shooting guard of all time behind Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. But there has also been chatter of where James Harden stands in the debate.

Former NBA defensive stalwart Patrick Beverley recently made headlines when he claimed that he would take Harden over Wade simply due to “longevity.” Wade played in the league for 16 years, but his last most productive season likely came in the 2015-16 season when he made the All-Star team and averaged 19.0 points per game. That was his age-35 campaign.

Harden, meanwhile, is in his age-35 campaign and is averaging 22.6 points to go along with 5.8 rebounds and 8.7 assists per game.