A few years ago when asked about his climb up the NBA’s all-time leading scoring list, LeBron James tried to hammer home the point that he wasn’t a scorer — instead, he’s a playmaker, he told reporters.
Could’ve definitely fooled us.
James is set to pass Kobe Bryant on the NBA’s all-time scoring list on Saturday night. All he needs is 18 points to do it. He’s sitting at 33,626 ahead of a road game against the 76ers. Bryant is at 33,643.
After tonight, everything gets real. LeBron might reasonably have a claim to being the NBA’s greatest scorer ever. He’s not too far away from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the number one spot.
- Kareem Abdul Jabbar: 38,387
- Karl Malone: 36,928
- Kobe Bryant: 33,643
- LeBron James: 33,626
It won’t be easy for James to retire as the NBA’s scoring king — not by any stretch. James is already 35 years old and playing in his 17th NBA season. He’ll probably need to play another three full NBA seasons to break the all-time record .
Through his first 16 seasons, James averaged about 2,033 points per season. If he keeps his 25.2 point per game pace up through the rest of the season, he’ll just fall short of that average with 2,016 total points. That means he’d finish the season with 34,558 points, give or take a few depending on how many games he misses the rest of the year.
If James finishes the season around that mark, he’d need 3,830 points to beat Abdul-Jabbar. At his current pace, James could potentially pass that mark by the end of the 2021-22 season, but that’s assuming his scoring average doesn’t drop, and that he doesn’t miss any games.
If we give him three full seasons to accomplish the task (though the end of the 2022-23 year), he’d just need to average 17 points per game over 75 games per season. At the pace he’s going now? That seems doable.
