More than 20 years after being labeled “The Chosen One” on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a junior in high school (and getting a matching back tattoo right after), LeBron James has turned hyperbole into reality by becoming the NBA’s all-time leading top scorer.
Aged 38, James scored 38 points against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday, bringing his regular-season total to an incredible 38,390 points. That’s three more than six-time NBA MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had held the record for 39 years.
It took James 1,410 games to beat the all-time scoring record, 150 fewer than Abdul-Jabbar had needed to reach his career total of 38,387 points. Interestingly, both players took very different routes to their scoring records, as Abdul-Jabbar made just one (!) three-pointer from 18 attempts in his 20-year career, while James made 2,237 from 6,494 attempts.
In case you’re wondering where Michael Jordan is on the list: he’s ranked fifth with 32,292 regular season points. Having played “just” 1,072 games, “His Airness” is still number one in terms of points per game, however.
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