For the first time since 1984, the NBA has a new scoring champion. LeBron James officially passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the record books on Tuesday. In his 20th season, James is averaging a robust 30 points per night. For his career, James has a 27.2 points per game scoring average, and it took him 1,410 games to pass Kareem for the all-time scoring mark. And if you’re a sicko who can’t appreciate the present, your first question after LeBron’s incredible achievement is: Who will break the record next?
We’ll take a look at some of the game’s biggest names (and best scorers), but first, we need to establish where James will finish points-wise. At this moment, we’re not quite sure how much longer LeBron will play. And somehow, in the last two seasons, he’s averaging more points than his career average despite being on the wrong side of 35, with his age-40 season fast approaching.
From the start of the 2020 season through the day he broke the record, James has played in a little over 69% of the Lakers’ regular-season games. We’ll use this as our baseline assumption for how many appearances LeBron will make in a season for the rest of his career, including the remainder of this one. James is signed through next 2024, and has a player option for the ‘24–25 season, during which he will turn 40. While LeBron has flirted with the idea of playing much longer—perhaps until 45, like Tom Brady—for the purposes of this exercise, let’s assume James plays through his age-41 season. That gives him a chance to play with his son, Bronny, while also making a guess LeBron will walk away while he’s still at an All-Star level instead of joining a new squad as some kind of super role player.
