A New All-Time Scoring Leader
Judged against the past decade or so, this has been a mild NBA season. Granted there are a few external factors that have diverted fans’ attention: the abnormal World Cup timing, college football and the NFL turning in headline-heavy years, new albums dropped at Midnight, and maybe even the mid-term election season. Probably most of all, however, what was hyped up to be an exciting offseason, didn’t actually have fans itching to see anything unique. I mean Donovan Mitchell is a great talent, but people aren’t clamoring to see non-LeBron Cavs teams play. Even observing live game attendance, the enthusiasm is just not on the same level this year. Granted a lot of artists are going back on tour so maybe that money is being allocated elsewhere for this new Era of concerts.
There is one storyline, however, that has stayed atop NBA headlines and is picking up even more steam as the season matures and we are about to see it come to fruition: LeBron James passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s All-Time Leading Scorer.
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Anyone who knows me will tell you it’s no secret that LeBron is my favorite all-time player. And it’s not even a competition; LeBron is in a stratosphere of his own when it comes to an NBA player whose jersey I’m willing to buy. And while I am still young, I genuinely believe there will never be another player who surpasses him from an influence and fan POV in my eyes; sometimes people just have that effect on you. Sure, the game will continue to evolve, and great new talent will come into the league, but it’s impossible to replace someone that’s had such a tremendous impact on my fondness for the game.
And as he's about to hit another one, there are a few moments in his career that stand out as a “where were you when” for me:
2003 — Draft Night: I was 8 years old when LeBron was drafted, watching him lead off the iconic 2003 NBA draft class with my brother a couple of weeks after I finished atop the 2nd-grade class in wall ball rankings.
2012 — Game 6 Boston and First Title: I was pacing up and down the living room for the entirety of that legendary elimination game; you would think I was a teammate on the bench. I kept that same stance as they closed out the Thunder a couple of weeks later.
2013 — NBA Finals Game 6 & 7: I jammed my wrist smacking the ceiling in excitement when Ray Allen hit that iconic 3 in Game 6 (apologies to my Spurs friends) and was all smiles in my normal high stakes game pacing routine when LeBron put forth another 37-point herculean effort to close it out.
2016 — NBA Finals Game 7: I was in New York staying at the NYU dorms for a summer internship, streaming the game on my laptop sitting in the same spot as I did for the prior two games for good luck. I nearly threw my computer across the room in excitement when LeBron got that block, Kyrie hit that shot and they closed out that unreal 3-1 comeback.
2020 — NBA Finals Game 6: I didn’t want to watch the first half as every time I did during that playoff run, his team struggled. But I got to my friend’s apartment for the second half, and we put back an incredibly satisfying six pack of Stella as LeBron became the first player ever to lead three different franchises to an NBA title. That legendary post-game cigar pic is Hall of Fame-worthy.
2023 — NBA All-Time Leading Scorer: I’m not sure where I’ll be yet when this happens later this week, but I guarantee it will be another one of those moments that gets logged into my “iconic” archives.
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I know it’s absurdly unlikely he’ll ever read this; I mean for god sake, I’d be willing to bet that basketball fan or not, 99% of the world’s memory-capable population knows who LeBron James is. And I’m sure I’ve probably lost most non-LeBron fans at this point, but I think it’s important that this last piece be acknowledged:
Looking at these career time stamps I’ve highlighted, it’s wild thinking about everything that has happened in all facets of life over the past 20 years. And with so many things that have changed or been uncertain, there was always one constant everyone could count on: LeBron giving a top-class performance every night on the court and carrying himself off the court in a way, that for anyone who’s truly paying attention, deserves tremendous respect because it’s resulted in us as fans enjoying the prosperity of the game that much more.
