LeBron Eyes NBA's All-Time Scoring Record; Jason Kidd Thinks Assists Next?
History could be made on Tuesday night with the Los Angeles Lakers taking on the Oklahoma City Thunder, as LeBron James is just 36 points away from passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the top spot on the NBA's all-time scoring list.
For a guy who has accomplished pretty much everything an NBA player could hope to accomplish throughout a 20-year career, as he's a four-time champion, a four-time Finals MVP and a four-time league MVP, becoming the league's all-time leading scorer will just be the icing on top of the "king cake."
However, could James, who has always considered himself as being a pass-first player, potentially find his way at the top of the all-time assists list as well before he retires? Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd thinks so.
“If we’re not careful, he’s going to make a run at John Stockton’s assists record," said Kidd. "He’s going to run right past me.”
As of right now, James is in fourth-place on the all-time assists list with 10,351. He is 920 assists behind Chris Paul, who is still playing, 1,740 behind Kidd and 5,455 behind the the all-time leader, John Stockton.
Over these last three years, James has been on a 350-assist per season pace. So, if he ends up playing five more years, as he's been on record saying he might do, that pace would put him comfortably past Paul and barely past Kidd for second place.
However, even if James maintained his career average of 7.3 assists while playing in all 82 games each year, it would take him another 10 seasons to pass Stockton. Needless to say, Kidd might have been joking when he bought up Stockton.
Regardless of how high James ends up on that particular list, though, it's still pretty impressive that he's going to be the league's all-time leading scorer as well as at least being in third-place on the all-time assists list. Love him or hate him, James is a once-in-a-lifetime talent that we should soak in while we still can.
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