Pro Basketball Hall of Famer Spencer Haywood played long before LeBron James entered the NBA in the early 2000s. However, that doesn’t mean that Haywood didn’t have an impact on James becoming the league’s all-time leading scorer last season.
In fact, Haywood believes he played a key part in James breaking the record. His reasoning actually makes some sense.
“Oh he’s going to add to the record but, you also have to think, he would not have broken that record if he didn’t have four extra years that Spencer Haywood provided for him,” Haywood told Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson.
Aside from Haywood’s outstanding basketball career, he is well-known for his 1970 antitrust lawsuit with the NBA that allowed underclassmen and high school players to turn pro earlier.
Haywood further explained the significance that the antitrust lawsuit had on James in particular.
“Because before I came along, you had to wait four years before you got into the pros. So LeBron was able to come in from high school, so he’s got 8,000-plus because of what I did. So it’s a beautiful thing to see and to see Kareem is on the acceptance level that says, ‘You know, he broke this record,’ because all of these records are going to be interesting.”
As Haywood mentioned, James is going to be able to put his scoring record quite a bit out of reach as he continues playing. James, who turns 39 in December, will play his 21st NBA season this fall, and is still contributing at a high level. He has scored 38,652 career points, with quite a few still to come.
