By Zach Kram
LeBron James is days away from breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career points record, and the 38-year-old is sprinting to the finish line with one of his highest-scoring seasons to date. Yet he’s not the only star racking up points this season. Offense is up, the league is flush with talent, and spectacular statistical showings have become the nightly norm. So while catching LeBron may be impossible, the next generations of top scorers may have an easier path to rarefied air.
At the moment, only seven players in NBA history—including LeBron—have reached 30,000 points. But an application of Bill James’s “favorite toy” model, which estimates career totals based on age and track record, reveals that 19 more active players have at least a reasonable chance to break the 30,000 threshold:
1. Kevin Durant: 95 percent to reach 30,000 points
2. DeMar DeRozan: 51 percent
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 49 percent
4. James Harden: 47 percent
5. Jayson Tatum: 45 percent
6. Luka Doncic: 44 percent
7. Russell Westbrook: 37 percent
8. Nikola Jokic: 28 percent
9. Stephen Curry: 24 percent
10. Trae Young: 23 percent
11. Joel Embiid: 20 percent
12. Anthony Edwards: 17 percent
13. Julius Randle: 15 percent
14. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 14 percent
15. Devin Booker: 14 percent
16. Zach LaVine: 13 percent
17. Damian Lillard: 13 percent
18. Jaylen Brown: 11 percent
19. Donovan Mitchell: 10 percent
There’s a giant leap from 30,000 to 38,387, however, and only four of those 19 high scorers are at a 10 percent chance or better to follow in LeBron’s footsteps and pass Abdul-Jabbar’s once-hallowed mark. Veterans like DeRozan and Harden have a good chance of reaching the big round number, but almost no possibility of pushing onward to Abdul-Jabbar’s threshold because of their ages.
The foursome that does have a shot at passing Abdul-Jabbar includes just one player in his 30s and one player in his late 20s, along with two of the NBA’s brightest young stars:
1. Tatum: 17 percent to catch Kareem
2. Doncic: 17 percent
3. Durant: 11 percent
4. Antetokounmpo: 11 percent
Both Doncic and Tatum have arguments in their favor for being the most likely to follow LeBron past Abdul-Jabbar. Doncic is a year younger and a better scorer than Tatum on a per-game basis, which would seem to make him the clear favorite, but his relative lack of health could hamper his pursuit of career records. Doncic has already missed more games in five years in the NBA than LeBron missed in his first 11 seasons.
Health and longevity are requirements for accumulating the loftiest statistical totals. The top three scorers in NBA history—Abdul-Jabbar, LeBron, and Karl Malone—all rank in the top 10 in career games played.
That factor is what dims Durant’s chances, even though the Nets wing is the top active scorer behind LeBron, with nearly 27,000 career points, and has exhibited essentially no falloff even as he’s entered his mid-30s. Durant hasn’t averaged fewer than 25 points per game in any season since he was a rookie. But whether the injury-plagued superstar can play enough games to score the extra 12,000 points he’d need to catch Abdul-Jabbar remains a thorny question.
Finally, Giannis’s odds are diminished by the relatively slow start to his career; he didn’t reach 20 points per game until his fourth season, whereas LeBron, Durant, and Doncic were all at that level as rookies. The two-time MVP is making up for lost time, though, as he has more points than any other player over the last half decade and is still squarely in his prime.