This past season, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James became the NBA’s all-time leading career scorer, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. With 38,652 career points under his belt, the question is how much higher will that figure get before his career is all said and done?
It is anyone’s best guess how many more years James will play and at how high a level he will be able to perform. He has stated he wants to play with his son Bronny, who can be drafted into the NBA as early as next year, but how much longer would he want to remain in the league afterward?
Buy Lakers TicketsFormer Cleveland Cavaliers teammate Richard Jefferson said on a recent episode of the podcast “Road Trippin'” that the younger James will play three or four more seasons and reach 45,000 career points. Jefferson even went as far as saying no one will surpass the younger James’ career scoring mark for a long time (h/t The Sports Rush).
“I think he is going to play three, four (more) years. What I am saying is that (expletive) is going to score 45. LeBron James is going to score 45,000 points. Look, we are being generous on the early, thinking it might be not as pretty on the back end, so we are saying 65 games, 25 points, we know it can be more, whatever. So, yes, that record is never going to be broken. I’m sorry, that is one that, in our lifetime, we know that that player does exist, so we can say in our lifetime we are not going to see it.”
Perhaps someday his mark will be surpassed, especially given how much medical science continues to advance. But it is safe to say that mark will be safe for at least some time, no matter what number it ends up being.
