With Kevin Malone in his rearview, Lakers superstar LeBron James holds the second position on NBA’s career points leaderboard. Despite LeBron’s valiant efforts each game, the Lakers have not been able to find a way to win this season. They entered the league as the Western Conference favorites this year. Unfortunately, the Lakers have a win-loss record of 30-41 this season, with a mere 13 percent chance of making the playoffs. Amidst all the chaos with his team, James has had a whooping scoring average of 29.8 per game.
The 37-year-old only had a better season in 2007-08, with a scoring average of even 30 points. In a losing cause against the Wizards on Saturday, James scored 38 points with ten rebounds and six assists, taking his all-time points tally to 36,947 points. With Malone gone, LeBron has only Kareem Abdul Jabbar ahead of him with 38,387 points. So when will LeBron James pass Kareem’s record, and how far can he go? Keep reading ahead to find out!
When Will LeBron James Become All-Time Leading Scorer In NBA?
LeBron trails Kareem by 1440 points and is expected to surpass him during the next season. The LA Lakers have 11 games left this season. Considering if LeBron plays them all and scores his current season average of 29.8 per game, he might end up scoring around 300 points. Hence, he may trail Jabari by 1100- 1200 points, depending on the number of games LeBron plays.
Fortunately, LeBron has scored in excess of 1400 points every season since his rookie year except 2020-21. James missed 27 games last season on top of a shortened 72-game campaign due to COVID. Therefore if everything goes right for LeBron and he returns next season in good form, he is expected to pass Kareem Adbul-Jabbar between mid-January to February. Hopefully, the Lakers superstar will become the highest all-time leading scorer in NBA’s history before the All-Star break next year.
Will LeBron Become The First To Score 40,000 Points In NBA?
With just one man ahead of him, Lakers and NBA fans are wondering how far can LeBron go and will he be able to cross the golden 40,000 points mark. As per the “favorite toy” by Bill James, The Ringer claimed in 2018 that James might finish on a career total of 39,847 points with a 48% chance of reaching 40,000.
With four more years of stats to consider, his average total has increased to an exciting 41,255 points with 95% chances of crossing the 40k points mark. Moreover, his average is 29.8 points per game is more than six points better than the second-best player at 37-years of age. In the second position, Karren had a game average of 23.4, followed by Karl Malone at 23.2 and Micheal Jordan at 22.9 points per game. The fascinating stat proves that it is highly likely that LeBron James is on the fast track to becoming the first player to score 40,000 career points in NBA.