LOS ANGELES — LeBron James founded a new scoring club of his own Saturday, becoming the first player in NBA history to score 40,000 points.
The Los Angeles Lakers forward, who passed Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the league’s all-time leading scorer in 2023, entered Saturday’s 124-114 loss to the Denver Nuggets at Crypto.com Arena needing nine points to reach the milestone. James cleared the bar early in the second quarter with a spinning left-handed layup past Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr.
“No one has ever done it,” James said Thursday. “For me to be in this position at this point of time in my career, I think it’s pretty cool. Does it sit at the top of the things I’ve done in my career? No. Does it mean something? Of course. Absolutely. Why wouldn’t it? … To hit feats and have milestones throughout my career, they all mean something to me.”
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Large countdown graphics displaying James’s career point total and progress toward 40,000 points hung in the arena’s upper bowl. James hit a transition layup and a three-pointer in the first quarter, before making a driving layup early in the second quarter to set the stage for the milestone shot.
After James reached 40,000 points, he received multiple standing ovations from the Los Angeles crowd and the Lakers announced his achievement during a subsequent timeout. James, who finished with 26 points, four rebounds and nine assists to bring his career scoring tally to 40,017 points, acknowledged the crowd by holding the game ball above his head before a tribute video played on the jumbotron.
“I’m never thinking about a milestone when I’m out there battling,” James said. “When it happens, obviously we acknowledge it. Much respect and much loyalty to the Lakers fan base for showing me that love during the timeout.”
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James, 39, boasts a career scoring average of 27.1 points and reached 40,000 points in his 1,475th regular season game. In a sign of his remarkable consistency, the 21-year veteran scored his first 10,000 points in the same number of games — 368 — as he needed to go from 30,000 points to 40,000.
The Lakers held a 66-58 halftime lead over the NBA’s defending champions, but Nuggets stars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray took over down the stretch. Jokic posted 35 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists in Denver’s eighth straight win over Los Angeles, a stretch that includes a 2023 Western Conference finals sweep.
James said the scoring milestone was “bittersweet” because it came in a loss.
“It’s a hell of an accomplishment,” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said. “I wish we could have gotten the win to cap it off. My hat’s off to him. An amazing run that continues to this day. Everyone in our program and our organization is extremely excited and happy for him.”
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James, the No. 1 pick in the 2003 NBA draft, scored 25 points in his Oct. 29, 2003, debut at age 18 before becoming the youngest player to reach 10,000 points (Feb. 27, 2008), 20,000 points (Jan. 16, 2013) and 30,000 points (Jan. 23, 2018). The four-time MVP surpassed Abdul-Jabbar’s long-standing scoring mark of 38,387 points on Feb. 7, 2023.
The NBA’s all-time records include regular season games only. James is also the NBA’s all-time playoff scoring leader with 8,023 points, holding a healthy lead over No. 2 Michael Jordan (5,987).
The 20-time all-star, who also ranks fourth all-time in assists and eighth in steals, said that he “played the game the right way” and set the scoring record “organically,” rather than intentionally trying to unseat Abdul-Jabbar.
James left open the possibility that his scoring mark will one day be broken. He noted that Oscar Robertson’s record of 181 career triple-doubles was once deemed untouchable, but Russell Westbrook surpassed that mark while Jokic and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks are also in hot pursuit.
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“We have a lot of great guys in the league who can score the ball and if they can stay healthy and play a long time, they can eclipse it,” James said. “Records are always meant to be broken. You can never say never of any record. ... For years, people said Kareem’s record wouldn’t be broken and I was able to eclipse it.”
Despite the NBA’s ongoing offensive boom, there are no imminent threats to James’s scoring supremacy. Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant ranks ninth on the all-time scoring list with 28,372 points and is second among active players. However, Durant is 35 years old and has lost most or all of three seasons because of significant injuries. There are no other active players among the NBA’s top 20 all-time scorers.
James, who is under contract through the 2024-25 season, could sign a multiyear contract extension this summer. In other words, his record remains a moving target.
