LeBron James is ready to play in the 20th season of his amazing NBA career soon. The King will be turning 38 years old soon, but he is still somehow one of the best players in the league.
He may have lost some athleticism over the years, but LBJ has filled that void by adding other skills to his already deep bag. Considering the fact that James will be playing the 20th season of his career, his name has been in the record books several times.
Last season, James passed NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most combined points in the regular season and the playoffs. After achieving that record, James is also on the verge of passing Abdul-Jabbar for the most points scored in the regular season.
The King only needs to average 16.2 PPG to achieve this feat. Many believe if LeBron breaks this record of Kareem, he should unanimously be considered as the GOAT ahead of Michael Jordan.
But if that doesn’t help in James getting that label, there’s another record he may soon break to establish himself as the greatest basketball player of all time.
LeBron James Can Have Most Points In Basketball History
At the time of writing this article, James has 37,062 regular season points to his name. In addition to that, the L-Train has also amassed 7,631 points in the NBA playoffs. Combining them, James currently stands with 44,693 points to his name.
It’s truly astonishing that LeBron has scored so many points in his career despite not being primarily considered a scorer by fans. But before you get impressed with that, there’s more to James’ scoring ability.
The King has appeared in 68 games for Team USA. During those games, he scored 979 points with an average of 14.4 PPG. Combining all of James’ scoring feats, he currently has 45,672 points.
Despite having so many points to his name, James is still not the player with the most points in basketball history. As of now, this title belongs to Brazil basketball legend Oscar Schmidt.
Schmidt’s journey began in 1974 at the age of just 16 years, when he made his club debut for S.E. Palmeiras. He would go on to play until 2003 for several different clubs and managed to score a humongous 42,044 points in 1,289 games. He had a phenomenal scoring average of 32.6 PPG.
It’s not that Schmidt wasn’t offered a chance to play in the NBA; he was even drafted by the New Jersey Nets in 1984, but he denied the opportunity because he wouldn’t have been allowed to play for the Brazil national team had he accepted it.
Speaking of his international career, Schmidt was a mainstay in Team Brazil and appeared in 326 games, where he ended up scoring 7,693 points with an average of 23.6 PPG. When we combine his points total from club and national level, it adds up to 49,737.
As of now, LeBron James is just 4065 points away from breaking Schmidt’s record. Considering that LBJ can manage to stay healthy and his scoring average doesn’t take a huge dip, he should be able to surpass Schmidt in two or three seasons.
