LeBron James becomes all-time leading scorer in NBA history

[Halldan1]

LeBron James becomes all-time leading scorer in NBA history

LeBron James has added another accolade to his collection, as the Lakes star surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the NBA’s all-time scoring record.

nypost.com

By Noah Concordia and Andrew Crane

LeBron James has reached the top.

The Lakes star surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and claimed the title for most points scored by a player in NBA history.

The Lakers star scored the record-breaking point against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Crypto.com Arena in the third quarter on Tuesday. James inherited the scoring title from Abdul-Jabbar, who previously held the record with 38,387 points.

“Just want to say thank you to the Laker faithful, you guys are one of a kind,” James said in a tearful address to the Los Angeles crowd. “To be in the presence of a legend and one of the greatest such as Kareem is humbling. Give a standing ovation to the captain, please. Everybody that’s ever been a part of this run for the last 20 years, I just want to say thank you. … F–k man… thank you guys!”

James hit a fall-away jumper from the left elbow with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter to pull the Lakers within 104-99 for his 36th point of the night. He finished with 38 points in the Lakers’ 133-130 loss. James had to come out of the game late with an apparent foot injury and now has 38,390 points.



“When I read about the history of the game, I never thought this record would ever be touched,” James said on the TNT postgame show. “Especially the way Kareem played the game and how long he played the game. I just didn’t think nobody would have that longevity to come out on the floor and play at that level for so long. It’s just a complete honor to be a part of this league, to be a part of the greats to play the game and for me to be right there at the apex with them.”

The game immediately stopped and there was an on-court ceremony involved James, Abdul-Jabbar and NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

“A record that has stood nearly 40 years,” Silver said, during a literal passing of the ball from Adbul-Jabbar to James, “Which Kareem, many people thought would never be broken. LeBron, you are the NBA’s all-time scoring leader. Congratulations!”

The ascension of James — to the pinnacle of NBA history while becoming a legendary figure across the entire sports industry — can be dissected into at least four chapters once he reached the NBA as an 18-year-old, No. 1-overall pick in 2003. Everything started in Cleveland, the franchise located near his hometown of Akron, Ohio, and his legacy started budding when he scored 25 points in his NBA debut against Sacramento and averaged 20.9 for the season.

James capped that campaign with a Rookie of the Year honor. He made his first appearance in the All-Star Game the following year. The first NBA Finals appearance arrived in 2007, when the Cavaliers went on a postseason run but were eventually swept by the Spurs.

Then, following the 2010 season, a second chapter began and not without controversy. It featured betrayal — to some — and the arrival of a new superteam to others. It started with “The Decision,” in which James announced he was leaving his home state to join Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in Miami. The hyped TV show, which included a drawn-out interview from Jim Gray on ESPN, was met with widespread criticism and put a bullseye on the back of the three South Beach stars.

Two seasons later, James had clinched his first NBA title and second NBA MVP award. He’d never again lead the league in scoring like he did in 2007-08 (30.0), but his points-per-game average never dipped below 25, either. In 2011-12, James averaged 27.1, 7.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game.

But after four seasons with the Heat, another decision arrived. This time, James opted to return home, to that franchise closest to Akron, and it paid dividends when he led the Cavaliers to their first championship — and James’ third title — in 2015-16. It was accomplished with a dramatic 3-1 comeback in the NBA Finals against the Warriors, a budding superteam and dynasty of their own.

Then, following the 2018 campaign, James bolted for the West Coast. He joined a storied franchise, in a storied city, that was in the middle of anything but a storied stretch. The Lakers hadn’t made the playoffs in five seasons. James changed that in just his second year with the team. And he won his fourth NBA title in 2019-20 amid the strangest of backdrops — inside a bubble at Disney World, with COVID-19 tests, protocols and restrictions overshadowing anything that unfolded on the court.

It’s where James, Anthony Davis and others orchestrated the Lakers’ return to the top of the NBA. James averaged a double-double that season, recording 25.3 points per game and compiling 10.2 assists per game. It’s the only year in his career, so far, where he has averaged more than 10 assists per game.

In the years since, James has continued to compile jaw-dropping numbers even as the team has struggled on the floor. Most recently, at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 31, he passed Mark Jackson and Steve Nash to move into fourth all-time for assists.

“I didn’t get to this point in my career by thinking about records or how many points I have,” James said following the Lakers’ win over the Knicks on Jan. 31 at Madison Square Garden. “I just play the game the right way. I approach the game every night on trying to be a triple threat.”

James’ legacy has extended across three decades, and though the 38-year-old’s playing days won’t last forever, his impact on the game will continue beyond his retirement date — whenever that might be.

Abdul-Jabbar played 20 seasons in the NBA, retiring at age 42 and had a career average of 24.6 points per game an will forever live on in Lakers lore. At 7-foot-2, Abdul-Jabbar dominated the league alongside Magic Johnson when he was drafted in 1979. This would be known as the “Showtime” era, a dynasty that would win five championships.

“He got out of high school, he had the size and talent to step right into the NBA and he immediately started to have his effect,” Abdul-Jabbar said on the TNT postgame show. “It’s going for almost 20 years now. You got to give him credit for just the way the he planned to last and to dominate.”

The current-day Lakers have a new star duo — with James and Davis paired together — but the same success hasn’t quite followed. However, James now has become a four-time NBA champion, Finals MVP and NBA MVP, on top of breaking numerous other records prior to the scoring record. He became the first player in NBA history to have at 30,000 points, 10,000 rebounds, and 10,000 assists last season as well as breaking Michael Jordan’s double-digit scoring streak in 2018.

 

[Hall-O-Daze]

Kinda unfortunate there seems to be no relationship between LeBron and Kareem. It was readily apparent last night and made for a forced, awkward moment. Is that how two laker greats address each other? You would think this would be some great moment in NBA history, but it ended up being as frosty as the 1982 version of The Thing or The Shining. Doesn't help that Silver has no presence, or seem to have any grip on the magnitude of the moment. He was like "these two don't like each other, so let's get this over with quick!". I can't help but think of cold fish every time I see him.

Anyway, LeBron has a lot of haters, but I am not one of them. He always stood in the way of The Bulls, but he was built for the game and greatness. Still remember watching his first game against the Kings all those years ago. Kudos to him. Credit to Kareem for at least showing up and posing for photos, but it looked like it was pulling teeth for him.

 

[jack 1970]

They don't like each other. Generalization differences.

 

[Burnsly]

Kareem was as genuine as it gets. LeBron is not.

 

[Halldan1]

How LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar overcame frosty past for special moment

They have never been close. As recently as last October, LeBron James had been asked if he had any thoughts about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and he had none.

nypost.com

How LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar overcame frosty past for special moment​

By Mike Vaccaro

They have never been close. As recently as last October, LeBron James had been asked if he had any thoughts about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or if he’d care to comment on the relationship James enjoyed with the man who, for almost 34 years, had scored more points than any other player in NBA history.

“No thoughts,” James had said then. “And no relationship.”

They are men of different generations, who have espoused different public stances on any number of social issues, and that has caused conflict in the past. But in recent weeks whatever chill existed between them had clearly thawed. On James’ birthday on Dec. 31, Kareem tweeted: “Happy birthday, LeBron. 38 is the new 38,388.” Then on Wednesday morning, Abdul-Jabbar wrote a long post on his Substack accepting much of the blame for their non-existent relationship.

Though Kareem’s ex-running mate Magic Johnson had believed Abdul-Jabbar wouldn’t be pleased at seeing his total of 38,387 points surpassed, Kareem was there, courtside, late Tuesday night, watching the Lakers play the Oklahoma City Thunder.

And when James splashed a 14-foot fadeaway jumper over an Oklahoma City forward named Kenrich Williams late in the third quarter, Kareem was immediately on his feet, joining the other 18,996 spectators at Crypto.com Arena in a burst of joy. He may have been one of the few whose hands weren’t attached to their phones, intent on capturing history with a click.

Understandable, though. Abdul-Jabbar had lived so much of that history. Because if there is one person who could understand, as thoroughly as possible, LeBron James’ journey from prodigy to immortal, it is Kareem. He paved the way, after all.

Abdul-Jabbar — then known by his birth name, Lew Alcindor — had been the original basketball Mozart, better known as a high school player at Manhattan’s Power Memorial than most college players and almost all of the Knicks of the early ‘60s. The only post-prep route in those days was college, and more than 250 schools fought for his signature because they knew the winner — which turned out to be UCLA — would win championships. And the Bruins were 3-for-3 with him.

Years later there was LeBron, and by then the NBA allowed high schoolers to jump straight to the pros, and the same noise and the same expectations surrounded him. Back in 1969 it took a coin flip to land Kareem in Milwaukee; by 2003 it was James’ hometown Cavaliers who would win a lottery. Neither man has ever been on a basketball court on which he could hide since they were 16 years old.

In January, proof that James’ frostiness toward Abdul-Jabbar had lessened emerged when he told ESPN: “I think of the correlation of being high school phenoms, doing the things that we did off the floor for the betterment of our people, to wearing a Lakers jersey … and being a part of this conversation with the scoring record. That’s the relationship. That’s the conversation. We will kind of always be linked.”

And so all of that was in the room Tuesday night when the game was stopped and James’ family joined him on a basketball court in downtown Los Angeles, and so did Kareem and so did Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner.

“Kareem,” Silver said of the record, “many people thought [it] would never be broken. LeBron, you are the NBA’s all-time scoring leader.”

And with that, Abdul-Jabbar raised the ball with which James had scored his 38,388th point with his right hand, high above his head, turned and regally handed it to James. It was a passing of the torch, one basketball icon to another.

Almost 34 years earlier — April 23, 1989 at the old Fabulous Forum 10 miles southeast in Inglewood — Kareem had taken a feed from Magic and dunked with 2 minutes and 14 seconds left in the Lakers’ regular-season finale against the Seattle Supersonics, the last of those 38,387 points. He had broken the record himself five years earlier and nobody had really come close to sniffing it — for the longest time, Karl Malone was second, some 1,459 points behind.

It felt unbreakable.

Then, 12,343 days later — symmetrically against the Thunder, who used to be the Sonics — James took a fadeaway and there was new name atop that list. It is a record that isn’t held in the same numerical context as some others … but as we were reminded last summer, with Aaron Judge, sometimes those sacred records come with complicated backstories.

No complications here. The list of men who have scored more points than any pro before them is finite. Kareem had it since 1984. Wilt Chamberlain had it from 1966-84, Bob Petit from 1964-66, Dolph Schayes from 1958-64, George Mikan from 1952-58 and Joe Fulks from 1946-52. That’s seven names, with LeBron.

Will there ever be an eighth? By the time James is done, we might really be able to call that record “unreachable.” Though they said that plenty on April 23, 1989 when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — LeBron before LeBron — did that, too. If it happens, here’s hoping LeBron James is sitting courtside with a smile on his face. As wide as Kareem’s was Tuesday night.