LeBron James closing in on 40,000 career points
On February 7th, 2023, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record with a fadeaway jumper in a home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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HISTORY.
With this bucket, LeBron James moves past Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer! pic.twitter.com/N6V5RxPe6r
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) February 8, 2023
Abdul-Jabbar had scored 38,387 points over the course of his illustrious career, and many thought that record would be unbreakable. But LeBron is now the NBA’s all-time scoring leader and he continues to add to his lead. The interesting thing with the four-time champion and 19-time NBA All-Star is that 40,000 points is now in striking distance. And DraftKings Sportsbook has added a market so that bettors can try and win some money trying to figure out when The King will reach that milestone.
When thinking about when LeBron might reach the 40,000-point mark, you should remember that the forward is averaging 25.2 points per game. However, it isn’t as simple as dividing how many points he needs by 25 to figure out how many games it will take. You have to also try and figure out some of the scheduling quirks that the Lakers will be dealing with. For example, LeBron hasn’t played every game that Los Angeles has played this year. With the star forward turning 40 at the end of December, the team has been listing LeBron as questionable whenever the team plays on back-to-back nights. The Lakers are playing for championships, so they need to keep their best player healthy. So, while handicapping this journey, you can probably expect LeBron to miss a game or two.
I also don’t think it’s crazy to think that the Lakers will do what they can to make sure he’s going for the record in Los Angeles. The moment will mean a lot more if it happens in front of Lakers fans — and it’ll also be a way for Los Angeles to charge a fortune for tickets, which is something you can’t rule out.
LeBron James 40,000 Career Point Prediction
With LeBron’s scoring average, it should take him 29 games to reach 40,000 points. Well, the Lakers will be playing the second night of a back-to-back against the Jazz in Utah in 29 games. And Los Angeles has four sets of back-to-back games until then. I’m going to predict that LeBron sits out one game in two of those four sets, pushing that 29th game back to a February 23rd home meeting with the San Antonio Spurs. That would give LeBron the ability to celebrate the milestone with Gregg Popovich, a coach that he has admired throughout the course of his career. However, I’d also sprinkle a little something on LeBron to do it against the Washington Wizards on Thursday, February 29th. That gives you a chance in case the aging star suffers some type of minor injury.
