LeBron James has been known as a pass-first superstar for much of his NBA career.
In fact, this season he is leading the entire league with 10.7 assists per game.
However, according to his Los Angeles Lakers teammate Jared Dudley, James could easily be one the league’s leading scorer if he wanted to be.
LeBron will probably pass Kobe tonight on the NBA's all-time scoring list. But, MAN, he could have waaaay more points. pic.twitter.com/UyIe6yJFhW
— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) January 25, 2020
“I did ask his teammate Jared Dudley how many points he thought LeBron could average if he passed less and focused more on his scoring,” USA Today Sports’ Jeff Zilgitt said recently. “Jared Dudley thought about it for a second. He said that LeBron could average about 36 points a game if he cut his assists in half and focused on scoring.”
It’s worth it to mention that the current scoring leader in the NBA, James Harden, is averaging 35.7 points per game so far this season. Currently, James is just outside the top 10 with an average of 25.0 points per game.
James’ decision to focus more on passing and less on scoring this season seems to be as much about making his teammates better as it is about self preservation.
At 35 years old, James is changing the way people think about NBA stars extending their prime years.
Being a playmaker and setting his teammates up for open shots rather than working hard to create shots on his own seems to be one of his key strategies to doing that.
While Dudley may be right about James’ scoring potential, it’s likely that we’ll never see him average anything close to that.
Ultimately, Harden can worry about winning the scoring title. James is much more worried in winning his fourth NBA title by the end of this season.
