With 38 scored overnight in Oklahoma, he hit 38,388, one more than the record that stood since 1989
With a basket in the third quarter of the night’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, LeBron James broke the record of 38,387 points scored in the NBA that since 1989 belonged to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, another great player of the Los Angeles Lakers. Abdul-Jabbar originally set that in 1984 to surpass Wilt Chamberlain’s 31,419 points earlier.
On the field goal, a 2-point jump shot, the game was stopped for at least ten minutes. The speaker of the Crypto Arena in Los Angeles (the former Staples Center) made the official announcement: his family, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Abdul-Jabbar entered the court, who delivered the newly made basket ball , that of 38,388 points. James then gave a short acceptance speech and then resumed the game as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. He hasn’t scored any more, but from now on he’ll have plenty of time to do so.
It took James 1,410 games over nearly twenty years to surpass the runs Abdul-Jabbar had in 1,560 games, also over twenty years. However, the latter played in an era in which basketball was very different, especially in America: in fact, he scored only one 3-point field goal out of 18 total attempts in his career, while James had made 2,233 out of 6,488 before the last game attempts.
The historic record achieved on the night tops a long list of other records achieved by James in one of the longest and most successful careers in basketball history which so far includes, among other things, 4 NBA titles and 2 Olympic gold medals. In addition to his league average of 27 points per game since 2003, he has scored at least 10 in 1,139 consecutive games (Michael Jordan capped at 866), and at least 20 in 1,172 games.
In his first NBA game, in 2003 with the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Sacramento Kings, he started with 25 points. Twenty-five is also the points average held for 19 consecutive seasons: only Kevin Durant, Karl Malone and Jerry West come close to it in some way, but they are stuck at 11. His most prolific season so far in terms of points average was the one played with Cleveland between 2005 and 2006, which he finished with 31.4 points per game. His 61 made in 2014 for Miami against Charlotte is his record in a single game.
In his last five games, James scored 27 points at the New Orleans Pelicans, 26 at the Indiana Pacers, 28 at the New York Knicks, 41 at the Boston Celtics and 20 at the San Antonio Spurs. The anticipation for the record had inevitably lifted him ticket prices for Wednesday’s games against Oklahoma and Friday’s games against Milwaukee, both in Los Angeles. A courtside seat had cost over $70,000, while the average price had risen 390 percent.
Though Wednesday’s game will go down in record-breaking history, the Lakers were beaten 133-130 by Oklahoma for their second straight loss and 30th in 55 games played so far. They are therefore further and further away from a playoff spot, which they didn’t even qualify for last year.
