LEBRON JAMES - THE SCORING KING
Wow. He did it. This is actually very special. LeBron James is the NBA All-time leader in points. And he's not done either. Crazy.
When I started to play basketball, Kareem had already retired a couple of years before. So he wasn't on the Fleer Ultra 1992-93 cards or NBA action show where I learned most of my NBA knowledge. The great Magnus Dahlborn didn't mention him once during the first ever Swedish broadcasted NBA game, a Lakers against Celtics from 1992-93. Magic and Bird had recently retired so the focus was more on Sedale Threatt and Reggie Lewis.
But I do remember the first time I heard about Kareem. It was when I was playing 1-on-1 against my friend Erik in his house, and I said "I'm Dominique Wilkins..." and he responded with "I'm Kareem." Who? "He's the best scorer of all time" Erik continued. So I asked my coach the next practice who was the best scorer of all time, and he confirmed it to my surprise. I had no idea. But for 30 years, I've been taught that nobody will ever surpass him as the All-time scoring champ. It would be damn near impossible to do. Because you'd had to come in and score in the mid 20's from the start and do that for around 20 years with no major injuries. But in 2003, LeBron James said hold up.
LeBron came in as a young super phenom, an 18 year "old" rookie and took off from the jump. As he scored 25 points in his debut against the Kings, he never really looked back. He's averaged 20 ppg as a rookie and that was his lowest, by far. Since then, he never averaged less than 25, but multiple years he's been around 30 ppg. Even this season, year 20! Kareem was a 28 ppg scorer for his first 12 years, but his last 8 he dropped down to 19.4, and his last 3 he was down to just 14.1 ppg. LeBron actually went up from 25 back to 30 his last two years.
I've been blessed to witness LeBrons entire career, and the prime of Jordan's. To me, Jordan will always be the GOAT, and the best scorer. It will always be arguments about why he is or he isn't, but to me it's the eye test. I saw Jordan play. Even if his total isn't near LeBron, his career average is the best ever. And he probably held back during his prime too. If you don't believe that, go watch one game from 1988 and you'll see how easy it was for MJ to drop 40.
Crazy part is, what if LeBron never took so much time off during the regular seasons? What if he didn't play so much team oriented ball, if he was more a score first type of player? He will most def be the first to eclipse the 40K mark, and the only player I've ever thought could do that was KD.
The debate about who's the GOAT will go on forever, and as LeBron passed Kareem it'll probably be even more intense for a while. I not debating if he's the GOAT or not, but the fact is that he is the All-Time leading scorer now, let's just sitt back and embrace his greatness.