Kevin Durant admires LeBron James’ quest for breaking the NBA's scoring record: “To be the No. 1 in anything, there's 8 billion people in the world"
Kevin Durant is incredibly impressed with LeBron James approaching the all-time regular season scoring record held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The record has been the talk of the league since well before this season even tipped off. With James sitting just shy of the longstanding record, the NBA community has been eager to see whether this will be the season James surpasses Abdul-Jabbar.
Despite James being sidelined with lingering injuries for six games already, he is just 1,076 points shy of Abdul-Jabbar's record. Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1989 with 38,387 points; James has 37,311. By James' career scoring average of 27.1 points per game, it would take 40 more games. By James' season average of 24.9 ppg, it would take 43 or 44 games. The LA Lakers have 66 more games this season.
During a recent media scrum, Kevin Durant put into words just how amazing it would be to see James break the scoring record. The way he sees things, regardless of how long it takes King James to break the record, it's an incredibly impressive feat – not just for the NBA, but for the entire world.
"To be the No. 1 at anything, you know, it's 8 billion people in the world. ... so to be the No. 1 of all time at scoring a basketball, I mean, I'm sure there's gonna be a range of emotions for him to be in an era where we see this live. It's pretty cool as well. Probably can't even describe the emotions you feel, just him and his family and friends gonna go through."
Below you can view Durant's comments on the James' pursit of Abdul-Jabbar.
Where is Kevin Durant on the all-time scoring ladder?
Given that Kevin Durant is widely considered to be this era's greatest scorer, it's not surprising that he's one of the top active players on the all-time scoring ladder. When it comes to active players, James leads the pack with 37,311 points. Behind him is Carmelo Anthony, who despite being second among active players, is still 11th on the all-time leaderboard.
Sitting in 21st place with 26,074 points is Kevin Durant, who ranks third for active-players. With Durant being considerably younger than both James and Anthony, it's no surprise that he's rapidly catching up to the two men. In 55 games last season, Durant averaged a whopping 29.9 ppg while shooting 51.8%.
Given that, it will be interesting to see where he ranks by the time he finishes his career. So far this season, despite the Brooklyn Nets' struggles, Durant has averaged 28.8 ppg, the eighth most by a player this year.
Below you can see a breakdown of when LeBron could break several longstanding milestones. From becoming the all-time scoring leader to moving up the all-time assists ladder and the three-point ladder, James could have a huge couple of years.