(Buggered link fixed.)
LeBron James has now scored more points than any other player in NBA history, surpassing the previous record set over three decades ago by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
You know what’s strange about this? I heard nothing about it until the record had fallen, and that’s not some obscure record like “Most homeruns hit as a pinch-hitter” or some such thing. All-time leading scorer in NBA history? That’s a big damn record, and I didn’t know it was on the verge of falling until James had broken it.
Now, a part of that is surely the nature of how sports news is disseminated and how I consume it. We haven’t had cable since 2000, so regular watching of SportsCenter isn’t something that’s remotely on my radar. But I heard nothing of James’s pursuit of Kareem’s record at all on social media; nor did I see anything about it on The Athletic, to which I subscribe. And a big part of that is that The Athletic, for all its good coverage, is a site and app that is also a service, so when you use it first, you set up your “interests”, which is nice because you get what you’re interested in…but only what you’re interested in. There used to be a “Front Page” that had articles on other subjects, but they got rid of that, which means that now I don’t see stories on anything other than what I’ve signed up for. And that’s annoying, because good sports writing is always wonderful, no matter what the topic.
Which brings me to this bit of good sports writing, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar himself. Apparently he’s got quite the writing career going, and I had no idea! I didn’t know this at all, but reading this installment of his newsletter, in which he breaks down how he feels about seeing his own record fall, was just fantastic.
An excerpt that I especially loved:
Whenever a sports record is broken—including mine—it’s a time for celebration. It means someone has pushed the boundaries of what we thought was possible to a whole new level. And when one person climbs higher than the last person, we all feel like we are capable of being more.
Yes, I have already subscribed to Mr. Abdul-Jabbar’s newsletter.
And congratulations, LeBron James! By the way, this is my favorite James moment, and it doesn’t even happen during a game but during one of those contests where they bring a fan down and let them take one shot from half-court, and they win a bunch of money if they somehow hit this extremely low-percentage shot. Actual NBA players don’t hit half-court shots very often…but this guy did, and LeBron James, in his exuberant joy at this regular Joe winning, ran out and tackled the guy:
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Well, at least Kareem knew.And LeBron did it in fewer games (1405 v. 1560)
That link doesn’t go to Kareem’s post, but man what a fine alternate.
What is also amazing to me is that Lebron is fourth all-time in career assists. If he wasn’t such a prolific passer, he probably would have broken this record years ago. He is also one of only four players in NBA history to record more than 10,000 career points, assists, and rebounds, and the only player to record 30k, 10k, 10k in those categories. And, at 38 years old, has averaged above his career points-per-game numbers for the last two seasons. The man ain’t done.