Add Elvin Hayes to the list of players Dirk Nowitzki has passed on his way up the NBA’s all-time scoring list.

With his 14 points in the Dallas Mavericks win over the Lakers on Friday night, Nowitzki moved into the eighth spot on the scoring list and now trails Moses Malone by 87 points for seventh.

At his current scoring average of 18.5 points per game, Nowitzki should move past Malone by early January. Barring a significant scoring outburst over the last few months of the season, Nowitzki will have to wait until next season to eclipse Shaquille O’Neal for sixth on the all-time scoring list.

Assuming Nowitzki matches his career average of 74 games played this season and continues to average 18.5 points per game, he will end the season with 28,153 career points, 443 points shy of passing O’Neal.

After O’Neal come the five 30,000-point scorers in NBA history: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. Before his career is over, Nowitzki could very well be the sixth member of that exclusive club.

Considering he is surrounded by scorers like Monta Ellis and Chandler Parsons, Nowitzki has likely seen his last 20 points-per-game season. But that might not matter as he chases down 30,000 points.

If he can play 74 games and average 18 points per game next season, he will score 1,332 points. Add that to the estimated 28,153 career points he is likely to have by the end of this season and that would put him 515 points shy of 30,000 as he enters the final year of his contract. He would need to average only 7.0 points per game over 74 games at age 38 during the 2016-17 season to join the current five-man club.

There’s reason to believe Nowitzki can hit the 30,000-point milestone by simply taking a look at his zone chart (atop this article). Statistically he has ranked as the league's top shooter from the right side. And he has no cold zones.

All those hot zones outside the paint are a testament to his elite shooting ability. This season, he’s creating fewer shots for himself and capitalizing on passes from his teammates. One hundred thirty five of his 197 field goals have been assisted on. Nearly 70 percent of his two-point field goals have been the result of an assist.

He remains an efficient scorer despite taking longer shots. For the second year in a row, his average field goal attempt is coming from about 17 feet from the rim. That’s his longest average field goal attempt distance over the last 15 seasons.

Based on his rookie numbers, it’s hard to imagine too many people thought Nowitzki would come close to 30,000 career points. In his first season in the league, Nowitzki played 47 games and averaged 8.2 points per game. That’s the third-lowest scoring average in a rookie season among the top-25 scorers in league history. Only Alex English (5.2 points) and Kobe Bryant (7.6) averaged fewer.