LeBron James is getting closer by the day to a breaking a record that many believed to be unbreakable at one moment in time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the man who scored 38,387 points over the course of his career with the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers, held the record for over 3 decades.
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Now, with James at 38,024 regular season points after a heartbreaking loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, ‘The King’ is less than 400 points away from passing the UCLA alum. If he is to continue his 29 points per game average for this season, he will have a chance to break the record before All-Star break and in early to mid February.
The journey to reaching this point in his regular season career has meant him passing up a plethora of NBA legends along the way. His most recent was Karl Malone but prior to him was none other than Lakers legend, Kobe Bryant.
What game did LeBron James pass up Kobe Bryant?
The game that LeBron James passed Kobe Bryant in all time regular season points was on January 25th, 2020. It was coincidentally in Philadelphia, Kobe’s hometown after he moved to the United States from Italy
The game was between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers and it was actually a game that the purple and gold lost, 108-91. James however, did have his stats, dropping 29 points on the night and subsequently passing ‘The Black Mamba’ who scored 33,643 points throughout his career, not including the Playoffs.
Kobe’s last post on Instagram that he had posted by himself was him congratulating LeBron on passing him up. He would tweet about the same. Unfortunately, as NBA fans know, he would pass away two days later along with his daughter, Giannia.
Continuing to move the game forward @KingJames. Much respect my brother 💪🏾 #33644
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) January 26, 2020
LeBron James was never trying to break this record
LeBron James has always been a pass-first guy. His early NBA comps including Magic Johnson so safe to say that getting his teammates involved was what he wanted to do as the leader of his squad.
In a recent interview with ESPN, he was asked about how he would react when he breaks the regular season scoring record. He said that he doesn’t know because that was never a goal he set out to accomplish in the first place.
Also read: “LeBron James!”: When Kobe Bryant’s Choice For Best Player in the NBA Left Everyone Flabbergasted
