Kareem Abdul-Jabbar became the all-time leading scorer in NBA history in 1984, almost 40 years back. He did it against the Utah Jazz with his iconic sky hook to break the record set by Wilt Chamberlain, and Kareem was far from being done. Abdul-Jabbar would add almost 7,000 more points the rest of the way to finish with 38,387 points in his career.
It was almost inconceivable that someone would one day break Kareem’s record, but that day isn’t too far away. LeBron James is closing in fast on Kareem’s tally and James is certain to pass him at some point this season. It would be an unbelievable moment when he does so, but Magic Johnson doesn’t believe that his old teammate would be too happy about his record being broken.
Magic Johnson Doesn’t Think Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Will Handle It Well When LeBron James Passes Him
There are few people in this world who know Kareem as well as Magic does. The two won 5 titles together in the 1980s and formed a special bond during their time as teammates. Johnson was recently on the Club Shay Shay podcast, where Shannon Sharpe asked him how he thinks Kareem would handle LeBron taking that record from him.
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“I don’t think well. If I gotta say, we gotta be honest and the fact is that it’s a dude playing for the Lakers too. It’s a dude playing in LA. I think it’ll be a hard pill to swallow.”
Kareem, of course, set the record when he was playing for the Lakers, so it probably stings a bit more that someone else is going to surpass him while also playing for them. It also doesn’t help that Kareem and LeBron aren’t really on good terms at the moment.
James said he has no relationship whatsoever with Kareem and the latter has also taken some shots at LeBron in recent years. Maybe it is because there is some bitterness that James was eventually going to surpass him, but we can’t be sure about that. Magic is probably one of the few people who can bring these two together, and he knows a way to fix their relationship. Johnson says the two men just need to come together and have a sit-down sometime after LeBron gets the record, as they would find out that they are a lot more similar to each other than they’d have thought.
