LeBron James Becomes NBA Career Scoring Leader

LeBron James hit a jump shot near the end of the third quarter in the Los Angeles Lakers’ February 7th game against Oklahoma City to surpass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all time leading scorer. The game was stopped for a center court ceremony where Abdul-Jabbar handed a basketball to James in a symbolic transfer of the record.

Abdul-Jabbar played with the Milwaukee Bucks from the 1969-70 season through the ’74-75 season, and with the Lakers from ’75-’76 through ’88-’89. He scored 38,387 regular season points in his 20 year NBA career. James scored 38 in the game (which L.A. lost 133-130) and ended the night with 38,390 for his career. He is also in his 20th season. Abdul-Jabbar had held the record since breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s 31,419 points in April 1984. James, Abdul-Jabbar, and Chamberlain were all members of the Lakers when they set their records. Chamberlain is now seventh all time in points scored; Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Dirk Nowitzki are also ahead of him.

So how many more points can James score? He’s 38 years old, but is showing no signs of slowing down and is averaging 30.2 points per game, seventh in the NBA. He could conceivably play for several more years and put more distance between himself and the rest of the pack in terms of career points. As far as current players go, Carmelo Anthony is ninth on the all time NBA scoring list with 28,289 points. Anthony, also 38, isn’t officially retired, but hasn’t played this season. Next on the list is Kevin Durant; the 34 year old is a scoring machine is currently 14th all time with 26,684, but James is nearly 12,000 points and counting ahead of him. LeBron will probably hold the record for quite some time.