Listing down all of LeBron James’ achievements can be quite a time-consuming task. The King has accomplished so much in his time in the NBA over the course of these 19 seasons, and he is closing in on probably his biggest achievement, as he is within touching distance of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most points in the history of the NBA.
LeBron, who has never averaged under 20 points per game in any season of his career, only needs to average 16.2 points per game next season to surpass Kareem, and it’s safe to say he is going to do that fairly easily. Despite all his statistical brilliance, Gilbert Arenas, who has had his battles with the King on the court, said that LeBron has never had a season where he has tried to chase stats over winning. During an episode of the “No Chill with Gilbert Arenas” podcast, he said that LeBron is probably the only superstar who has never had a season like that.
(starts at 3:25 mark):
“I said LeBron is probably the only superstar that never had that year. That he never had that year where he says, ‘eh frick everybody, I’m trying to get my stats.’ Because I said If he ever did that, who’s stopping him? That man would average 40 something.”
“When LeBron stepped in, it was all about trying to win a championship. Every year, trying to win a championship, so he’s been building the teams to try to win championships, so he’s never actually had a selfish year where he says, I don’t need anybody, I want to show the world what I can do.”
For all the talk in general about LeBron stat padding, if he really wanted to, there were times in his career where he could have just chased stats instead of trying to win. He has always tried to get his teammates involved instead of trying to do everything by himself and, for most of his career, has been very active on the defensive end as well, which consumes energy that he can be used for scoring.
While averaging 40 points per game, as Arenas claimed here would be a stretch, LeBron could have definitely tried to score more and get his hands on more than 1 scoring title for his career, but his priority has always been winning.
