NBA’s Unbreakable Records

[Ed Monix]

Recently I was browsing NBA records and was curious how many do you believe will be unbreakable?

LeBron James is only 1,300 points shy of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time regular season record. If LeBron was to pass Kareem, I would view this as something unbreakable.

To come into the league at 18 years old and begin his career as the star of his team and consistently stay healthy for close to 20 years is impossible to replicate.

To put these numbers into context, Durant who’s a pure scorer is currently 21st on the list aged 33. Stephen Curry is 47th all-time and although he’s the greatest shooter of all time has only averaged 24.3 PPG, LeBron in comparison is at 27.1 PPG.

[celticsclay]

Recently I was browsing NBA records and was curious how many do you believe will be unbreakable?

LeBron James is only 1,300 points shy of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time regular season record. If LeBron was to pass Kareem, I would view this as something unbreakable.

To come into the league at 18 years old and begin his career as the star of his team and consistently stay healthy for close to 20 years is impossible to replicate.

To put these numbers into context, Durant who’s a pure scorer is currently 21st on the list aged 33. Stephen Curry is 47th all-time and although he’s the greatest shooter of all time has only averaged 24.3 PPG, LeBron in comparison is at 27.1 PPG.

This is all true, and a lot of all time records will probably stand moving forward outside of three point shooting because we are in the rest area where it extremely unusual to play all 82 games. Players are also doing things that were previously unheard of like taking more than a full year to recover from an injury (like Zion, Leonard and Murray this year).

[jambr380]

1192 consecutive games played by AC Green seems like something that will never be touched - like, not even half. Even if somebody desperately wanted to break it, coaches often sit guys just for rest. To put Green's record into perspective, that total is more than 14.5 seasons straight without missing a game.

[celticsclay]

This thread got me curious on rebounds. I think wilts record will not have anyone get in the neighborhood of it. He has almost 24k. The active leader is howard with 14.5. Next active players are Lebron James and deandre Jordan with around 10k. Will anyone even get within like 7k of that record?

[seancally]

Recently I was browsing NBA records and was curious how many do you believe will be unbreakable?

LeBron James is only 1,300 points shy of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time regular season record. If LeBron was to pass Kareem, I would view this as something unbreakable.

To come into the league at 18 years old and begin his career as the star of his team and consistently stay healthy for close to 20 years is impossible to replicate.

To put these numbers into context, Durant who’s a pure scorer is currently 21st on the list aged 33. Stephen Curry is 47th all-time and although he’s the greatest shooter of all time has only averaged 24.3 PPG, LeBron in comparison is at 27.1 PPG.

It’s hugely impressive. Lebron’s durability has a lot to do with it too. Didn’t miss much time during the course of his career until very recently.

[Silas]

Russell's 11 NBA championships is a record that won't be broken.

[Who]

I used to think nobody would get close to Wilt and Russell in terms of career rebounds but I changed my mind about that 2-3 years ago.

I was looking at Andre Drummond when Drummond was still starting and pulling down double digit rebounds every season while missing very few games. I was thinking of how young he was when he came into the NBA. And I was looking at him putting up one 1,000 rebound season after another.

So you'd like 20 years of longevity at that 1,000 rebounds type season to break the 20,000 career rebounds ...

If you asked me 20-30 years ago, I would've said nobody could do that. Rebounds were more contested and harder to get. Nowadays centers get so many rebounds. Players came into the league older back then, and, even the younger ones like KG, they weren't physically ready to compete for Day One but then along came guys like LeBron, Amare, Drummond. Guys who were physical specimens from the jump.

So the added ease of big rebounding seasons + players entering at a younger age + more physically developed bigs at younger ages ... yeah, I think someone could make a run at that record someday.

[Who]

I thought Durant was going to break LeBron's all time scoring record after LeBron broke Kareem's record but Durant caught the injury bug so he won't make it.

But yeah, someone will break LeBron's record. There have been more prolific scorers than him in terms of per game numbers and there will be more in the future. It just waiting for someone to have his longevity.

The main reason LeBron has this record is he has 4 extra years at 18-22 in the NBA while many older NBA players were at college (Kareem at UCLA). Now with one-and-dones & high schoolers likely to be drafted again sometime in the future, many many future players will have that advantage as well.

LeBron's record will be broken.

[Moranis]

I think the only "unbreakable" records are Wilt's single season ones.  His 48.5 mpg (he missed like 50 minutes all season), his 50.4 ppg, and his 27.2 rpg. 

I think those are the only 3 records that have no shot at being broken. 

The career one the least likely to fall is Wilt's total rebounds though.  He is more than 6,000 more than Moses Malone and like 6,500 more than Kareem for some context (they are 3rd and 4th, Bill is 2nd a good 2300 or so behind Wilt).  I mean Lebron has the 2nd most among active players and he was never an uber rebounder.  Drummond would in theory be young enough to get close (just 28 years old and already 9500 rebounds), but there is no way Drummond is going to be able to play long enough and with enough minutes to get there.  That said, there could be someone like Jokic that comes along that cleans up the glass and shoots well enough to stay in the league a long time that might eventually look like a real threat to Wilt.  They'd have to play Lebron type games and have a much higher rebounding peak than Lebron.  I think it is possible, though incredibly unlikely.

Stockton's assist record is also likely never to be challenged, though I could see that falling before Wilt's rebounding.  For some context, Stockton has like 3800 more than Kidd who is #2.  Which is insane, yet 15806 doesn't feel so far out there that someone couldn't get there. 

[Who]

I look at Stockton's 15,000 assist mark as the toughest one to break because assists have gone down so much. It is tough for guys to average double digit assists nowadays. Minutes are down which has hurt. And small guards have a tougher time getting longevity than bigger body players which will derail many PGs.

... then again, maybe I am underestimating the likelihood of someone like Doncic as a point forward at 6-8 230lbs having that big body & longevity and being able to make a run at that record.

[Who]

The blocks record will be another tough one.

Nobody averages a large number of blocks anymore. Back in the 80s and 90s you would have guys average 4+ blocks per game in their best seasons and having multiple 3+ blocks per game.

Nowadays guys have a tough time getting to 2.0-2.5bpg.

All those three pointers and spread out courts have led to less opportunities for shot-blockers to swat shots at the basket.

[Moranis]

I thought Durant was going to break LeBron's all time scoring record after LeBron broke Kareem's record but Durant caught the injury bug so he won't make it.

But yeah, someone will break LeBron's record. There have been more prolific scorers than him in terms of per game numbers and there will be more in the future. It just waiting for someone to have his longevity.

The main reason LeBron has this record is he has 4 extra years at 18-22 in the NBA while many older NBA players were at college (Kareem at UCLA). Now with one-and-dones & high schoolers likely to be drafted again sometime in the future, many many future players will have that advantage as well.

LeBron's record will be broken.

I think it depends just how far past Kareem he goes.  He theoretically could score another 8,000 points (5 years of 1600 points - not totally outside the realm if he can stay relatively healthy).  I'm not so sure anyone will get to 45,000 in that case.  Now if he stops somewhere around 40k, then I do think that could be doable for someone else.  A guy like Luka, for example, could end up with a ton of points, though he will have stay healthier than he has been (he has to have several upper 70's game played seasons).  Giannis is already 175th all time.  He started off pretty slowly, but if he can keep his peak around 28 ppg for the next 5 years or so, he will start really moving up on the leaderboard.  Over the last 6 years, Giannis has averaged around 1900 points a year.  He does that for another 5 years or so, he will be around 24,000 and still just 32.  Still a long way to go, but also time to get there if he can keep up his scoring (he like Luka needs to play more though). 

It isn't just that Lebron played for a long time at a high level, it is also he missed very few games in his absolute prime years, and he started scoring a ton of points almost immediately.  His rookie year he averaged 20.9 (which is a lot for a rookie), but by year 2 he was at 27.2 and stayed around that level or higher for basically the last 18 seasons.   Kareem played more games and had a higher peak, but he couldn't sustain it nearly as long as  Lebron.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Pretty much all of Wilt's records seem unbreakable.

[nickagneta]

Stockton's career assist totals, 15,806, seems like a number that might never be approached.

It would take 20 years of 790 assists per year. That's 10 assists a game for a minimum 79 games a year for 20 years.

The "Point God", an amazing PG with tremendous health and playing into 17th season, only has 10,977 assists and has been over 790 assists in a season only 3 seasons. He still needs 5000 more assists and won't approach Stockton's numbers.

[celticsclay]

I thought Durant was going to break LeBron's all time scoring record after LeBron broke Kareem's record but Durant caught the injury bug so he won't make it.

But yeah, someone will break LeBron's record. There have been more prolific scorers than him in terms of per game numbers and there will be more in the future. It just waiting for someone to have his longevity.

The main reason LeBron has this record is he has 4 extra years at 18-22 in the NBA while many older NBA players were at college (Kareem at UCLA). Now with one-and-dones & high schoolers likely to be drafted again sometime in the future, many many future players will have that advantage as well.

LeBron's record will be broken.

I think it depends just how far past Kareem he goes.  He theoretically could score another 8,000 points (5 years of 1600 points - not totally outside the realm if he can stay relatively healthy).  I'm not so sure anyone will get to 45,000 in that case.  Now if he stops somewhere around 40k, then I do think that could be doable for someone else.  A guy like Luka, for example, could end up with a ton of points, though he will have stay healthier than he has been (he has to have several upper 70's game played seasons).  Giannis is already 175th all time.  He started off pretty slowly, but if he can keep his peak around 28 ppg for the next 5 years or so, he will start really moving up on the leaderboard.  Over the last 6 years, Giannis has averaged around 1900 points a year.  He does that for another 5 years or so, he will be around 24,000 and still just 32.  Still a long way to go, but also time to get there if he can keep up his scoring (he like Luka needs to play more though). 

It isn't just that Lebron played for a long time at a high level, it is also he missed very few games in his absolute prime years, and he started scoring a ton of points almost immediately.  His rookie year he averaged 20.9 (which is a lot for a rookie), but by year 2 he was at 27.2 and stayed around that level or higher for basically the last 18 seasons.   Kareem played more games and had a higher peak, but he couldn't sustain it nearly as long as  Lebron.

Don't want to derail the conversation focusing on Lebron, but this figure does actually seem completely out of the realm of possibility. Lebron has missed significant time with injuries 3 of the last 4 season. Even though he did have a prolific scoring average this season, I don't think it is going to stay that way if he wants to play winning basketball and compete for playoffs titles. Also if his next coach has any brains at all, they will not play Lebron anything close to 37 minutes a game. That was malpractice from Vogel as a couch and certainly contributed to him not being available at the end of the season and repeated minor injuries. You can't even truly use the argument that they needed Lebron to play that many minutes, cause nobody could argue Vogel was aggressive pulling Lebron when the team was down 25 (it is night and day to how Kerr managed his aging stars in either end of blowouts).

 I also don't think given even young healthy stars are topping out at 75 games between rest and precaution with injuries Lebroin is going to be getting more than 1.1-1.2k in his 40's (unless he truly goes world b free mode and i doubt he cares as much once he passes Kareem.) Even the legendary Jabaar had his scoring drop pretty steeply in his age 39, 40 and 41 seasons. At age 41 he only had 748 points despite playing in 74 games. The NBA isn't like the NFL where you can have a quarter back that moves a total of 200 feet over the course of the game and can barely get hit cause of all the rules on protecting them from hits (this enables Brady to still be elite at 45). The NBA requires a ton of running, jumping and collisions which is why Lebron an ultimate iron man is now getting banged up pretty regularly. I also don't see him hanging on like Vince Carter as a role player given his ego.

Note for a lot of these reasons I don't think a player like Morant or Doncic will ever catch Lebron, just pointing out getting 8000 more points is a pretty wacky math.