When LeBron James entered the NBA 22 years ago, the book on him was to back off, don’t let him get going downhill, and dare him to shoot his shaky jumper.
In a perfect sign of how LeBron and his game have evolved over the past two decades, he reached a historic milestone of 50,000 points (and 50,001 and 50,002) with an above-the-break 3-pointer.
LeBron is the NBA’s all-time leader in regular season points scored — he passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s mark just more than two years ago — and playoff points scored. Coming into Tuesday night against the Pelicans, he had 49,999 points when those totals were added.
LeBron is more than 5,000 points ahead of Abdul-Jabbar, who is second on the all-time regular season and playoff points combined list at 44, 149. The top five are rounded out by Karl Malone (41,689), Kobe Bryant (39,283) and Michael Jordan (38,279). For his career, LeBron has averaged 27 points, 7.5 points, and 7.4 rebounds a game while shooting 50.7% (including 35% from 3).
LeBron isn’t done scoring and setting records. The next one he is likely to break is the total number of regular-season games played. LeBron is third on that list, a dozen games behind Abdul-Jabbar (1,560) for second. Celtics legend and Hall of Famer Robert Parish leads that list at 1,611 games, a number LeBron could pass next season if he plays another season, as expected, and remains mostly healthy.
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