LeBron James only needed 18 shots to score 29 points during the Los Angeles Lakers 114-110 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday. After entering the contest with 32,979 career points, James’ scoring effort in New Orleans pushed him past the 33,000-point plateau. In doing so, LeBron now joins a select group on NBA legends that includes Kobe Bryant (33,643 points), Karl Malone (36,928 points) and No. 1 all-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387 points).
One interesting note for Laker fans is that all four players in this exclusive club–including Malone–spent time playing in L.A. with the purple and gold during their NBA careers. What’s also interesting is the renewed opportunity to anticipate just how far LeBron could move up the all-time scoring list before he eventually retires. Since passing Michael Jordan to earn the fourth overall spot last season, a move for LeBron past Kobe for third is now imminent.
The 33,000-point club now looks like this:
Kareem
Malone@kobebryant @KingJames pic.twitter.com/N5ZQSwfoLp— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 28, 2019
King James trails the great Bryant by only 635 points. That means if LeBron were able to maintain his current scoring average of 25.8 points moving forward, he’d pass Kobe in roughly 25 games–at Boston against the Celtics on January 20 in what expects to be a potential Finals preview. Catching Karl and Kareem from there isn’t as straight forward, however, but it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
James would need 3,920 more points starting tomorrow against the Washington Wizards to catch Malone for the No. 2 spot on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. At his current pace, that would mean catching the Mailman in roughly 152 games. Catching Kareem would mean scoring 5,379 more points or keeping his current average for a little more than two-and-a-half seasons from here.
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