Since entering the NBA in 2003, LeBron James has taken the basketball world by storm, clearly solidified himself as one of, if not, the best player in the league. He is a two-time champion, two-time finals MVP, four-time league MVP, all-star MVP, scoring champion and has racked up a total of 21,081 points, which places him 32nd all-time in scoring.

With at least half of his career being completed, and achieving so much, the question now becomes; how many points will LeBron James score over his career? And where will he finish in the list of all-time scoring?

Before we jump into some predictions, here are some relevant numbers; over his career LeBron has averaged 27.7 points per game and has played in an average of 95.1% of regular season games, which equates to 78 games per year.

What does LeBron need to do to become the all-time leading scorer?

The NBA’s all-time leading scorer is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with 38,387 points over his 20 year career - he averaged 24.6 points per game over 1,560 games.

If we assume that LeBron James produces at his current level, when will he top Kareem? LeBron will reach 38,387, in which he is 17,306 point shy, after another 624 games at his current pace of 27.7 PPG - this would be his 1,388th game. If LeBron continues at his pace of 78 games per season, this achievement would occur in the last few games of the 2020 NBA season.







This assumes that LeBron James will maintain very consistent production and health over the next seven seasons (2013-2019) to set up for the historic end to the 2020 season.

Youngest to 30,000 Points

In December 2012, Kobe Bryant became the youngest player, at 34 years and 104 days, to reach 30,000 points when he hit the mark during his 17th season and 1,180th game of his career. To reach the record, Kobe had an average of 25.4 points per game up until that point - the record was previously held by Wilt Chamberlain who reached the milestone at the age of 35 years and 179 days.

At the start of the 2013 season, LeBron James will be 28 years and 303 days old giving him roughly 1,992 days to beat the record. At his current points per game and game appearance rates he is expected to reach the 30,000 mark early in the 2017 NBA season - around Game 10 - when LeBron would be around 32 years and 321 days, which would make him 513 days younger than when Kobe’c current record.

Realistic Projections of the Career Point Total of LeBron James

It’s unlikely that LeBron James will be able to keep up with his 27.7 points per game pace as well as continue to appear in 95.1% of regular season games (78 games). And while it’s difficult to accurately project out the remainder of LeBron’s career we can look at how other greats careers unfolded.







In the case of Kareem, over the his first 10 seasons he averaged 28.6 points per game while in the second half of his career he averaged 20.6 points per game - he averaged 77.3 games in the first half and 78.7 games in the second half. When it comes to Kobe, he averaged 24.1 points per game and 70.7 games in his first 10 seasons and over the last 7 seasons has averaged 28.7 points per game and 76 games per season.

For these two elite players, there isn’t a huge downgrade in either points per game or games played. So things could go the same way for LeBron and in that vein we decided to create a matrix of how LeBron’s career points total with varying points per game and game totals as well as seasons played - totals where LeBron tops Kareem are bolded.





6 Years 8 Years 10 Years PPG 68 Games 78 Games 68 Games 78 Games 68 Games 78 Games 20 29,241 30,441 31,961 33,561 34,681 36,681 22 30,057 31,377 33,049 34,809 36,041 38,241 24 30,873 32,313 34,137 36,057 37,401 39,801 26 31,689 33,249 35,225 37,305 38,761 41,361 28 32,505 34,185 36,313 38,553 40,121 42,921 30 33,321 35,121 37,401 39,801 41,481 44,481



As you can see from the above, LeBron has to increase his points per game to 28+ to be able to beat Kareem if he plays 8 seasons and as long as he keeps his total as is he will top him if he plays for at least 10 years and averages 68+ games each of the seasons.

The only thing left is to watch the rest of LeBron’s career play out.