Lakers News: Insider Recalls Night LeBron James Passed Kobe Bryant On NBA Scoring List
Los Angeles Lakers great LeBron James made a big decision on the night he lapped another LA great that had some unintended ripples, according to a league insider.
During a conversation with Daily Blast Live's Lindsey Granger, Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson of Bovada Sports shed some light on a fascinating anecdote from the evening LeBron James passed Kobe Bryant on the NBA's list of all-time regular season scorers, on January 25th, 2020. In a 108-91 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, James scored 29 points on 9-of-18 shooting from the floor, lapping Bryant's 33,643 career regular season points to reach third place on the list of the league's all-timers.
This was three years before James passed another Laker, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to become the league's all-time leading regular season scorer.
"LeBron had just surpassed Kobe for his place in the scoring record [books], he had just broken the record in Philly the night before. And that night, I was in the locker room with the Lakers and LeBron yelled, 'Yo, we're not going home tonight. We're going home tomorrow.' They were scheduled to leave that night. Had they left that night, I've always pondered this, would LeBron have been able to have that conversation [about lapping Bryant] with Kobe?"
Bryant's last-ever tweet, famously, was a celebration of James passing him on the all-time scorers list:
The very next morning, Bryant would take a final, fatal helicopter flight that resulted in a tragic Calabasas crash. Los Angeles would dedicate its 2020 NBA title to Bryant.
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