Blowing out an Achilles is a devastating injury, no matter the age. But for a veteran NBA player, it can almost be a career-ending moment.
As every basketball fan knows by now, nine-time All-Star Damian Lillard tore his Achilles during Milwaukee’s recent (brief) playoff run. He got surgery on the injury on Friday, May 2, and is expected to miss the entirety of 2025-26 as he recovers.
Even with Lillard’s unnatural healing ability, it would be a total shock if he returns to the NBA hardwood next season. After all, when Grant Hill tore his Achilles on Jan. 16, 2003, he didn’t return to NBA action until Nov. 3, 2004. More recently, Kevin Durant tore his Achilles during the 2019 NBA Finals on June 10, 2019, and didn’t return until Dec. 22, 2020.
Even with modern medicine, a torn Achilles is a year-plus layoff, almost guaranteed.
According to our research, if Lillard misses all of 2025-26 and returns to make an All-Star roster after that, he would be a huge outlier.
As of now, Anthony Mason is the oldest player in NBA history to miss a full season due to injury and still make an All-Star appearance after. Mason was 32 at the time of his injury and kind of a weak All-Star selection, too, averaging just 16 points and 10 rebounds when he got picked in ’01. (To his credit, he was a great defender and played a huge part in a 50-win Miami team that year.)
Lillard is currently 34 and turns 35 this summer, so he’d shatter the record of being the oldest player to make an All-Star team after missing a full season due to injury… if he’s able to pull that off.
What’s more, only Durant and Tiny Archibald made more than one All-Star appearance after missing an entire season due to injury. Oh, and only Durant Kawhi Leonard made another All-NBA team after missing a full season in their 30s. Of importance to Lillard, the oldest guard to miss an entire season due to injury and return to make an All-Star appearance after was Archibald, and he was 29 when he got hurt, not 34 like Lillard.
So the odds are stacked a bit against Lillard here.
Of course, if anyone can pull it off, it’s Lillard. After all, he did return from a blood clot issue in less than a month.
It just won’t be easy.
Below, check out the oldest NBA players in league history to miss an entire season and make an All-Star team after that, a list Lillard will be hoping to join one day.
Note: NBA legend Kobe Bryant never missed an entire season due to injury. But he almost did, back in 2013-14, his age-35 campaign, when he played in just six games. After he returned, he made two more All-Star appearances before his career ended. However, those All-Star nods were more like nods to his career as a whole, because in his last two seasons in the NBA, Bryant wasn’t quite playing at an actual All-Star level.
Again, this is to say, Lillard seriously has his work cut out for him here to return to All-Star level.
MATT CAMPBELL/AFP via Getty Images
Age when he missed a full season: 32
Age of first All-Star after injury: 34
All-Star appearances after injury: 1
Mason missed the entire 1998-99 season due to a bicep injury, a troubling issue considering he was already 32 years old. But he came back at a pretty solid level, averaging 13.8 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.0 steals in his first two campaigns (’00 and ’01) following his season-long layoff.
In that time, he made one All-Star appearance, finished eighth in Defensive Player of the Year voting twice and even finished 15th in MVP voting in 2000-01 in Miami.
To this day, Mason remains the oldest player to miss a full season due to injury and return to make another All-Star appearance, a feat Lillard will now likely be chasing.
Photo by David Berding/Getty Images
Age when he missed a full season: 31
Age of first All-Star after injury: 32
All-Star appearances after injury: 5
All-NBA appearances after injury: 2
Kudos to Durant that he was able to miss an entire season at 31 years old and return at the level he came back at. In Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, as a member of the Golden State Warriors, Durant ruptured his Achilles. He wouldn’t return to the NBA hardwood until 18 months later.
Following the season-long layoff, Durant came back in still-excellent form, making five All-Star appearances, two 2nd Team All-NBAs and finishing Top 10 in MVP voting twice since his Achilles injury.
Durant is the standard for Achilles injury recovery in modern athletes.
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
Age when he missed a full season: 31
Age of first All-Star after injury: 32
All-Star appearances after injury: 1
Due to a troublesome ankle injury, Hill was forced the entire 2003-04 season, as a 31-year-old, after he underwent a procedure in which doctors literally re-fractured his ankle to line it back up properly. Hill suffered a complication after the surgery, too, developing MRSA, which can be very dangerous.
Hill’s immediate return after the season-long layoff was promising, as in 2004-05, the former Duke star put up a 20/4/3 stat line on nearly 51 percent shooting from the floor, earning All-Star honors. Hill did get named an All-Star by fan vote that year, though, so maybe one can question the ultimate validity of that All-Star selection. He was quite good, but the Magic were mediocre overall that season. This could have been more like fans being happy to see Hill back and performing at a high level, so they voted him in as an All-Star starter.
That would be the last All-Star appearance of Hill’s career, however. To his credit, Hill did play another nine seasons after missing his entire age-31 campaign, and was a very effective role player all the way until he was 40, no small feat considering just how injury-riddled he was in his prime.
Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
Age when he missed a full season: 30
Age of first All-Star after injury: 32
All-Star appearances after injury: 1
All-NBA appearances after injury: 1
After tearing his ACL in the 2021 playoffs, Leonard missed the entire 2021-22 season, his age-30 campaign. Although he has missed time here and there since then due to more injury troubles, when he’s out there, Leonard remains an All-Star-level player.
Since his season-long layoff, Leonard has one All-Star and one 2nd Team All-NBA season, both honors of which came in 2023-24. Leonard then missed a lot of 2024-25 but did play like an All-Star in his 37 appearances this regular season, averaging over 21 points, five rebounds and three assists per game while securing 1.6 steals nightly.
But Leonard’s injury wasn’t as tricky to come back from as Lillard’s, and he was considerably younger than Lillard at the time he missed an entire campaign.
Dick Raphael/NBAE via Getty Images
Age when he missed a full season: 29
Age of first All-Star after injury: 34
All-Star appearances after injury: 1
All-NBA appearances after injury: 1
At the peak of his absolute prime in 1984-85, New York Knicks legend Bernard King suffered a devastating leg injury, one that included a torn ACL, a torn meniscus and a femur fracture.
The injury, which came in a season in which King was leading the league in scoring at 32.9 points per game, cost King the entire ’86 campaign, which would have been his age-29 league year. King would then play just six games in 1986-87.
For King to come back from an injury that gruesome at all is a testament to his mental strength. And the fact that in ’89 and ’90, he’d play in 81 and 82 games, respectively, was even more impressive.
The best individual season of King’s career following the horrifying injury came years later, in 1990-91, when he was named an All-Star and made 3rd Team All-NBA, and finished 16th in the MVP vote. That year, King put up 28.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.6 assists per contest, albeit while leading the league in shot attempts and playing for a 30-52 Washington Bullets team.
Still, an extremely impressive campaign by King considering all he had been through physically at that point.
Malcolm Emmons
Age when he missed a full season: 29
Age of first All-Star after injury: 31
All-Star appearances after injury: 3
All-NBA appearances after injury: 1
After an injury-riddled 1976-77 season with the New York Nets, Hall of Famer Tiny Archibald was traded to the Buffalo Braves. Unfortunately for both Archibald and the Braves, the UTEP product never played a minute for the Braves, as he tore his Achilles and missed the entire 1977-78 season, his age-29 campaign.
The fact that Archibald had a Hall of Fame career gets all the more impressive when you realize that wasn’t even the first Achilles tear of his career, but the second. The first of his came in 1973-74.
Archibald came back strong from his second Achilles injury, finishing Top 5 in the MVP vote in 1979-80 and being named an All-Star with the Boston Celtics, before then earning two more All-Star honors, as well as another Top 10 MVP finish and a 2nd Team All-NBA.
The electric point guard might be underrated historically, as Archibald overcame two Achilles tears to earn multiple All-Star honors in his early to mid-30s.
Archibald is the oldest guard in NBA history to make an All-Star appearance after missing an entire season due to injury.
Can Lillard take that honor from him? It’ll be an uphill battle, but if anyone can do it, it’s someone like Lillard.
