TLDR: Nat Hickey is a fraud. When he (officially) set the record, he was not playing in the NBA. He was not playing in the best league, and a league called the NBA did not exist.

https://www.nba.com/news/oldest-players-to-play-in-an-nba-game

If you look up at an official NBA record book, Nat Hickey, a player-coach for the 6-42 Providence Steamrollers, in 1947, played two NBA games just shy of his 46th birthday, hit a total of two free throws, and called it a day. Ever since that, he’s held the record for the oldest player to ever play.

One small issue with that - in 1947, there was no such thing as the NBA in professional basketball. Hickey played in the BAA - definitively the second best league at the time behind the NBL.

When the two leagues merged in 1949, trying to combat mutual financial problems, then the NBA was formed. Teams that had come from the NBL won every championship until 1956, when the Warriors broke through.

But, Maurice Podoloff (namesake of the MVP trophy), and formerly the commissioner of the BAA, became commissioner of the NBA, and slowly rewrote history, centering the BAA as the sole origin of NBA basketball. Objectively speaking, it makes no sense that the BAA is considered NBA basketball, especially since the NBL isn’t.

Normally, the NBA pretending to start three years earlier than it really did doesn’t have much of an impact, but this is a specific record where it genuinely does. And it turns a seemingly unbreakable record into one that is a little more attainable.

SickSaricDario | Warriors

139 | 2 hours ago

we are all pablo torres

LamarMatic | 76ers

1 | 14 minutes ago

and we have the footage for it as well!

Wow_Good_Stats

1 | 3 minutes ago

While we’re at it, Magic did not play center in game 7 of the finals his rookie year.

The Lakers just started 2 centers the whole season and then Kareem went down and Magic played power forward next to another center. The other guy was Jim Chones and he was 6’11”. He played center every single year of his career besides that one year with the Lakers where they played him with Kareem. He was averaging 28 minutes per game in the finals till Kareem went down. Then he played 43 minutes in game 7.

Still great by Magic playing power forward but he didn’t play center.

logster2001 | Rockets

77 | 2 hours ago

Wow that is interesting. You should post this over on r/VintageNBA I’m sure those guys could give some more context to it as well.

msterling2012 | Mavericks

26 | 2 hours ago

Haslem played less that 400 total minutes over his last 7 seasons. Buddy was a coach for more than a third of his career.

lifestepvan | Supersonics

17 | an hour ago

And Kevin Willis played a grand total of 43 minutes in his age 44 season that got him the record. 0 the year before that as he was retired.

If not for that, his record would be at age 42 and well within reach of Lebron.

Pickleskennedy1

4 | 36 minutes ago

Robert Parish would then have the record at 43

lifestepvan | Supersonics

1 | 33 minutes ago

Damn, of course. The wording I replied to made me forget about him.

faithfuljohn | Raptors

0 | 33 minutes ago

And Kevin Willis played a grand total of 43 minutes in his age 44 season that got him the record. 0 the year before that as he was retired.

If not for that, his record would be at age 42 and well within reach of Lebron.

maybe the record should be not just “were you on a roster and stepped on the court while being old”, but did you actually play regular minutes. If that’s the case, then Vince, Kareem & Lebron would be the only ones in contention.

MostlyMellow123 | Kings

22 | an hour ago

Nat hickey stans in shambles

trentyz | Nuggets

1 | 23 minutes ago

I just fell to my knees in a Sam’s Club bathroom

[deleted]

16 | 2 hours ago

[deleted]

Imaginary-Cycle-1977 | Spurs

2 | an hour ago

D Train!!

HenrikCrown | Pelicans

11 | 2 hours ago

Are we sure the likes of Manute Bol or Dikembe Mutombo weren’t like 45 at some point either?

Pickleskennedy1

18 | 2 hours ago

Manute especially was rumored to be 10-15 years older than his listed age. Absolutely incredible if that stuff is true

MrBuckBuck | Trail Blazers

19 | 2 hours ago

If you loook at Manute Boil’s Wikipedia, you can see he was born between 1946-1962

Some suggested he played in the league while he was in his 50s

DankMemesNQuickNuts | Charlotte Bobcats

4 | an hour ago

I feel like theres no shot it is personally. Seems incredibly unlikely that he was 39 years old as a rookie and played until his early 50s. He would have had an entire NBA career in his 40s. I just don’t think people are capable of this unless they are like truly freak athletes, which Bol really wasnt.

Big-Teaching5445

5 | an hour ago

he was 7-7

anonymoususer6407 | Rockets

13 | 2 hours ago

Mutombo was a rotational player for the Rockets in the playoffs in his 40s. I think he even started a few times when Yao was injured. Just amazing

ConsumptionofClocks

8 | an hour ago

Bol’s college coach believes Bol was in his 40’s. His listed 1962 birthday was essentially just put there by the coach to appease immigration officials, and based on no real logic.

ISHLDPROBABLYBWRKING | Knicks

-3 | an hour ago

Pretty sure Ibaka came in at 31

DankMemesNQuickNuts | Charlotte Bobcats

4 | 39 minutes ago

Not to be like that but Ibaka was born in Brazzaville, which is a city of millions and the Capital of the Republic of the Congo. His mom and dad both played basketball for the ROC and DROC respectively (the DROCs capital city is right across the Congo River) so presumably they were not exactly destitute. Seems to me that it is incredibly likely he has a real birth certificate.

I havent seen anything that really suggests he was older than people thought other than he peaked earlier in his career than people usually do. The only source that I can see anywhere about his age is from Kendrick Perkins who is a known bullshitter

IMO Ibaka was almost guaranteed 19 years old at the time he was drafted. I would have to see hard evidence of him not being born in 1989 to believe he wasn’t. People used to say this about Bismack Biyombo even though he clearly was 18 when he was drafted as well. The pattern between all of these guys age’s we’re questioning is that every single one of them are from Sub-Saharan Africa. I don’t think thats coincidence.

beforeitcloy | SAC

8 | an hour ago

Pretty impressive until you look and see that Willis only played 43 minutes as a 44 year old and took the prior season off.

Lebron already has like twice as many post-40 minutes as Willis and he’s only 41. Willis’s record is about as much of a sham as Hickey’s.

Runmiked

6 | 2 hours ago

The BAA was the stronger league and had al the champions until 1956 after the merger. You have it all flipped. The Lakers were a BAA team. They won 4 out of the seven alone.

Pickleskennedy1

13 | an hour ago

The Lakers originated in the NBL, and came over to the BAA in 1948

MrFishAndLoaves | Pelicans

2 | 2 hours ago

America is in its ~~Golden~~ Gray Age

Sweetnessmj

2 | an hour ago

Kevin Willis was jacked. I wonder what his weightlifting program was like?

bco112 | Knicks

2 | 42 minutes ago

I honestly think LeBron still has a few years to go. He still plays at an extremely high level. He might not be the best in the league anymore, but hes still better than alot ofnthe young guys coming up. More than earned it.

BillKennedyEnjoyer

1 | an hour ago

Now that he’s not here you want to try and erase history?

pthumbz

1 | 31 minutes ago

The league should’ve been called BBL after they merged. would be funny

Difficult-Beach-9737

1 | 25 minutes ago

I’m going to take OPs word and assume that NBL was indeed stronger than BAA, and that Podoloff had outsized power post-merger.

But it’s still part of the history of the league whether OP acknowledges it or not. It doesn’t matter what the “best” league is at a given time.

To demonstrate, we can imagine a more dramatic hypothetical universe where there were 5 pro leagues from 1945-2000 and the NBA was the 5th “Best” by OPs measure. Miraculously, the other 4 leagues failed in year 2000 (making the NBA finally become the “best” league after 2000 by OPs measure).

Does the league wipe all accolades before year 2000 because it wasn’t the “best” league in OPs eyes for the first 50+ years? I think not.

andresalejandro1120 | MIA

1 | 16 minutes ago

It frankly doesn’t matter that the NBA claiming the BAA stats for their stats makes no sense. It’s how the NBA does their record keeping. That doesn’t mean Nat Hickey is a fraud. He probably had nothing to do with the legitimacy of this record. It’s just one way to track this record. You gave another legitimate way to track this record. If other people were in charge the record books would look different; I know I would change the record books if I could.

P.S. You also mention that the early BAA years don’t really have an impact, but they do. Without them Lakers and Warriors lose a ring each and for the Lakers it is absolutely important in the franchise with the most titles record keeping which I would argue is a more important record than oldest player to play a game.

Nat Hickey’s false record: Kevin Willis (at 44) is the oldest player to ever play in NBA history - an accolade he’s been denied of for close to 20 years (in favor of a man who never played in the NBA). In reality, Udonis Haslem was less than two years away, LeBron is now three