Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James continues to get closer and closer to breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record.
He’s also climbing the all-time assists leader board, but it doesn’t seem like he’s going to end up passing Utah Jazz legend John Stockton for the top spot on that list.
James spoke about that recently.
“I ain’t thinking about that at all,” James said. “That man played, what, 19 seasons and in like 17 of them he played 82 games or some crazy stat like that? No. I’m good on that.”
The 38-year-old is currently 5,469 assists away from surpassing Stockton’s mark. If James wanted to set that record, he would need to play at least 750 more games and average at least 7.3 assists per contest during that span. The four-time champion currently averages 7.3 assists per game for his career, so that wouldn’t be an issue, but the amount of games it would take him to set the record would be one.
There are only 82 games in NBA regular seasons, so it would likely take James playing the entirety of a few seasons to break the record. While he’s shown that Father Time has not beat him yet, it seems unreasonable to think that the No. 1 overall pick from the 2003 NBA Draft will play until he breaks the assists record.
With the way things are going, it seems like James will end up breaking Abdul-Jabbar’s record in front of Lakers fans at Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Breaking the record in Los Angeles would surely make the achievement that much sweeter.
However, the four-time MVP is likely more focused on helping the Lakers climb the Western Conference standings. They currently sit in 13th place in the West with a 24-28 record.
Despite that standing, they’re not fully out of the playoff picture, as they are just three games back of the Golden State Warriors in fifth place. Furthermore, they sit just two games behind the New Orleans Pelicans for the conference’s final play-in tournament spot.
With the postseason getting closer and closer, L.A.’s margin for error gets smaller and smaller.
