If a university student intends to write a thesis to explain the impact of NBA, obviously you will have to mention Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James between the references. The latter made his own legend by breaking records.
LeBron Raymone James, born in Akron, Ohio on December 30, 1984, is a player who is recognized worldwide as “King James”, but in basketball he could easily be named “the record breaker”.
In the NBA there is no longer a record that is not led by James. With his career spanning 21 seasons, LeBron is the leading scorer in the history of the most important basketball league on the planet.
During the match between the Los Angeles Lakers and the recent champions Denver Nuggets, the 23rd of the gold and purple franchise managed to surpass 40,000 points in his career, thus becoming the first player in the 78 years of the NBA to reach this figure.
In his team’s 124-114 defeat, the King took all the flashes of an evening that marked a milestone in the career of one of the best players of all time.
Four-time MVP, four Finals MVP, four rings and, as of March 2, 2024, the first and only player to reach 40,000 points.
The hype surrounding LeBron James, pick 1 in the 2003 Draft, was immense before he even stepped foot on an NBA court. In his professional debut, his first basket came off an assist from Ricky Davis. He finished with 25 points, 6 rebounds and 9 assists in a 106-92 loss to the Sacramento Kings.
By crushing Utah for 51 points in the 2005-06 season, James became the youngest player to reach 5,000 points, surpassing Kobe Bryant.
LeBron returned from an ankle injury in the first half to score 26 points and become the youngest player in NBA history to reach 10,000 points. James reached the mark at 23 years and 59 days; he was a year younger than Bryant when he reached the mark in 2003 (24 years, 193 days).
After surpassing Jordan, Bryant and Karl Malone, LeBron James once again rewritten NBA history in 2023 by surpassing a mark that at the time was believed to be impossible to beat, that of the all-time leading scorer in American basketball. And he did it with a new exhibition to leave behind the almost 40-year record of the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
James, now a Lakers star, surpassed the mark of 38,387 points that had been held by Abdul-Jabbar since April 1984, eight months before James was born.
Now, with more than 40,000 points under his belt, he is expected to play two or three more years, meaning LeBron’s record may be untouchable for the rest of history.