18 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED KIDS JOHJOHNN IW.AC MOCDNO ( ABONOUGH (JAMDU L-J A B B A R ) ; ES)
Some^ of^ spo
rts’^ most^ ha
llowed^
records^ cou
ld^ be^ broke
n in^
the^ coming^
years.^ Other
s^ will
become^ eve
n^ less^ attain
able.^
Here’s^ who^
has^ a^ shot^ to
rewrite^ the
history^ boo
ks.
IT’S A MATTER of when, not if. LeBron James will break
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record of 38,387 career points.
Barring an injury, he will probably do it next season.
That a Laker will be breaking another longtime Laker’s
record will only make the moment that much cooler.
The NBA’s all-time scoring title is a strange honor.
How many younger fans knew that Karl Malone had
sat in second place behind Abdul-Jabbar for more than
20 years, until James overtook him this season? Yes,
the point (no pun intended) of basketball is to score.
But the unwieldy, five-digit nature of the record makes
it hard to remember and even harder to calculate
James’s distance. And the GOAT debate has never been
LeBron vs. Kareem.
In some ways, it’s like being MLB’s career runs
leader (Rickey Henderson, with 2,295). Bill James, the
father of sabermetrics, once said of Henderson, “If you
could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.”
LeBron James figures to split into at least 10.010,20,30,40,10 15 20Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar
38,LeBron
James
37,The King Takes
The Scoring Crown