Was watching a retro NBA game on NBA-TV (1990 Bulls vs Cavs where Jordan scored 69-points).
Anyway I had forgotten where Jordan ended-up in all time scoring and looked-it-up (he's currently 5th all-time but he has the fewest-games played of the top-5) - but noticed LeBron is currently 3rd (behind Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Karl Malone).
Jabbar has 38,387, and James has 34,087 - James would be a lot closer if he had not lost most of last-season, and part of this season - but anyway James is 4300 points behind - if James manages to play 160-games the next 2-seasons and averaged 27-points/game he would catch Jabbar; pretty amazing.
So - do you think James will retire as the all-time NBA scoring-leader - IMO if he stays healthy he'll probably do it.
List of all time scoring leaders:
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LeBron wasn't averaging 27 points a game this season nor 80+ games even without the suspended season. It will likely take him 3-4 seasons to achieve it. But a single injury could derail it. Until Kobe's achilles injury, he looked like he might make it but then he barely scored 2000 points his last 3 seasons over half of those in his final season where he played 66 games and averaged 17.6 points a game at the age of 37. LeBron will be 36 at the start of next delayed season which might be truncated as well if they try to save the current season.
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I think he'll catch Malone (given health) but, as time goes on he will become more of a facilitator than a scorer and will fall short of KAJ.
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