LeBron James may blow by Michael Jordan’s postseason scoring record
With LeBron James seemingly ready to cruise into his sixth straight NBA Finals, the Cavaliers star is steadily climbing up postseason leaderboards in numerous categories.
LeBron’s latest feat was moving into fourth place all-time on the NBA’s postseason scoring list, putting him ahead of three-time Finals MVP Shaquille O’Neal on the prestigious list. James is still behind Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the list and—quite frankly—he should blow by all of them.
James is the youngest player in NBA history to reach 5,000 points in the playoffs, as you’ll see in the chart below. Not only is James over a 1,000 points ahead of where Jordan—the all-time leader with 5,987 points—was at the same age, the way things look LeBron will probably still be playing in the playoffs past age 35.
So when should we expect LeBron to hold the record? Well, his current playoff scoring average is a robust 28.0 points per game. If LeBron maintains that pace, he’ll need 27 games to safely pass Jordan, which should happen some time around 2018 when James is 33, a full two years ahead of the age Jordan scored his last playoff point. (A shot you may remember pretty well.)
At this rate, the only thing that can stop LeBron from passing Jordan is if he deflates every last basketball while dunking.
