This might be one of those unbreakable records, and he will only be adding to it too. He has played for 20 years, straight out of high school, and started day one. During that time, he averaged over 27 ppg, and stayed relatively healthy that whole time. I'm not sure we'll ever see that combination again, which is what it will take to get close to the scoring record.
I agree. Kareem's record stood almost 40 years. I could see this one doing the same if not longer although you never know what advances in medicine, physical therapy, etc..... hold down the road for professional athletes. Or the NBA does something ridiculous and starts adding a 4 point shot or something insane.
It'll be a very uphill battle, though.
Maybe if there's a shift in scoring, if 40ppg becomes the new 30ppg. While it seems like scoring is way up this year (114ppg league average), it's still below all time highs from the 60's and 70's, and not that far off from the 110 highs of the 80's. But at the same time, you do have more older players averaging ~30 than in the past (Durant age 34, Curry age 34, LeBron age 38, Lillard age 32), so continued high scoring in your 30's could be a thing that helps some future great approach the record.
Even another freak of nature, like Giannis, just to catch where LeBron is now, if he plays till he's 40, and averages 70 games a year, would have to put up 25.6 ppg over the next 12 years just to catch LeBron's current total. Never mind the minimum 2-3 more years LeBron has left to add to his total. I could see Giannis passing Malone, approaching Kareem, but that's only if his body holds up like LeBron's (a huge assumption).
Even if 40 becomes the new 30, are the guys going to start playing every day again? I mean Giannis hasn't missed single digit games since the 2017-18 season. Luka has missed less than 10 games 1 time in his career and he is on pace for more than 10 again this year.
Lebron didn't play games like Kareem, Malone, Jordan, etc. but it has only been the last 5 years when he really started racking up the DNP's. Prior to 2019, the only season in his career in which he missed more than 10 games was 2015.
Lebron has played 1410 games. Kareem played 1560. By the end of the year Lebron will likely be around 1440 games, so nearly 2 seasons less games than Kareem.
As a comparison, Luka has played 311 games of a possible 366 or 84.97%. Over 82 games that is just shy of 70 games a year and another 23 this year. So that would put him at 334 at the end of year or 1076 shy of were Lebron currently is. If he ends up missing the same percentage of games, he won't even hit Lebron's games for another 15.37 years. That assumes there are no work stoppages and Luka doesn't suffer major injuries. He would also need to just about maintain his current 27.4 ppg for the entirety of that time. And that is just to hit where Lebron currently is. Lebron has at least another full season of time ahead of him, if not 2 or 3 more.
Even if this scoring uptick continues, I just don't see how anyone is going to get to Lebron in my lifetime. He is going to have such a massive lead on everyone else, I just don't see it happening.
Topic: All-Time Scoring Record About to Fall (Read 19424 times)