Someone recently asked The Athletic’s Jovan Buha on social media to guess which players from the Los Angeles Lakers’ current roster will still be on the team in five years, and Buha seems to be skeptical of the idea that Anthony Davis will be with the storied franchise by that point.
“AD in 2029 would be turning — he’d already be 36, gonna be turning 37 that season,” Buha said on the subject of how old Davis would be five years from now. “I wonder if AD is still even playing then. I think he’s capable of still playing then and still being effective, but five years from now, 36-year-old, 37-year-old Anthony Davis, given his injury history, I do wonder — I would assume he’s still probably playing, but that’s an interesting one. My guess AD is not on the Lakers at that point, but maybe he’s the second or third guy next to a new star or a new couple of stars.”
Davis is currently 31 years old and will turn 32 in March. He has also already played 12 seasons in the NBA, including five with the Lakers organization. And because of the injury woes Davis has dealt with since he joined the Lakers, his body might not allow him to play in the NBA in five years.
While he did appear in 76 games with the Lakers during the 2023-24 regular season, that marked his first season with the team in which he logged more than 62 appearances. He has suited up in under 60 games in three of his five seasons in Los Angeles, and in the 2020-21 campaign, he played in just half of the team’s 72 contests.
Even if Davis can avoid the injury bug moving forward and is still in the league five years from now, it’s unlikely that his star teammate in LeBron James will still be in the NBA and with the Lakers. James will be 44 years old ahead of the 2029-30 campaign and just months away from his 45th birthday.
For perspective, the oldest player ever to play in the NBA is Nat Hickey, who was almost 46 years old when he played in a contest in January of 1948. The eldest NBA player of this century was Kevin Willis, as he was 44 years and 224 days old when he played his last regular-season game in the league against the Seattle SuperSonics in 2007.
Though there are plenty of question marks surrounding the future of the Lakers, fans of the team likely have their focus directed on the present with the start of the 2024-25 regular season around the corner. Los Angeles’ season opener will occur on Tuesday night, when it will play against Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
