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      The Story of LeBron James’s 38,390 Points

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      Stephen Curry’s favorite memory of playing against LeBron James isn’t from any of the three championships he won with the Golden State Warriors against James’s teams. It was from his 2009-10 rookie season, when James was in his seventh year with the Cleveland Cavaliers.They first met when James attended one of Curry’s college games for Davidson. The night before their first N.B.A. clash, in Cleveland, James hosted Curry at his home.“For me, as a rookie, it was a whirlwind of excitement,” Curry said. He added: “The fact that he’s as big as he is, as strong as he is, as skilled as he is, there’s never a time he can’t get a shot off.”James scored 31 points, most coming from near the rim or at the free-throw line. He hit just one 3-pointer.More than a decade later, James’s game looks different, though he can still dunk as if the rim insulted his honor. The N.B.A. has evolved rapidly since James entered the league in 2003, and his ability to change with it helped him break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s seemingly unbreakable career scoring record of 38,387 points on Tuesday. James has 38,390 points now.“Nobody could imagine somebody doing it,” said Drew Gooden, who played hundreds of games alongside James in Cleveland. He added: “If you would have said or told somebody in 2003 when LeBron James got drafted when he was 18 years old that he was going to break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring record, they would have looked at you like you were crazy.”Drew Gooden (90) played with LeBron James in Cleveland from 2004 to 2008. He cited James’s strict diet as one of his secrets to staying in the game for 20 seasons.Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE, via Getty ImagesN.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, in an email, called the record “one of the most hallowed” in all sports. Of James, he said, “His extraordinary athleticism, power and speed leave you in awe.”Over the past 20 years, James’s ascent to the top of the scoring list has impressed Hall of Fame players as he made a definitive case to join their ranks and perhaps be considered the best among them. His shots have felled the toughest competitors, yet made them fans as he blocked them from fulfilling their sports dreams. His teammates have amassed stories of the joys of playing with him — and the pain of being on the other side.At 38, James is one of the N.B.A.’s oldest players. He’s also still one of its best.“It’s not like he’s holding on for dear life just to get the award,” Curry said. “He’s still playing at a high level. So it’s pretty damn impressive.”‘Scored baskets in every way possible’Abdul-Jabbar, 75, played in the N.B.A. from 1969 to 1989 after starring for three seasons at U.C.L.A. When he broke Wilt Chamberlain’s career scoring record in April 1984, he did so with his patented, and nearly unstoppable, shot: the sky hook.James hasn’t cultivated that kind of signature.“Now, is there a shot that you know that he got that would make you say LeBron James? No,” said George Gervin, 70, a Hall of Fame player who won four scoring titles and is known for his finger roll.Instead, Gervin said, James’s “greatest attribute will be his ability to be consistent.”James, shown here in the 2007 Eastern Conference semifinals, has developed his 3-point shooting over time. Early in his career, he focused on dunks and short-range shots.Suzy Allman for The New York TimesJames has methodically developed his game all over the floor, borrowing from the greats. During any given game, he might shoot the fadeaway from the post perfected by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, go for a logo 3-pointer like Curry or do the “Dream Shake” he was taught by its namesake, Hakeem Olajuwon.“LeBron has scored baskets in every way possible,” Philadelphia 76ers Coach Doc Rivers said.Rivers, who has also coached the Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Clippers, said he recently ran into James in Los Angeles and joked, “I think you scored at least 10,000 of those points against one of my teams.”He said James responded, “‘Those Celtics points were the hardest damn points that I’ve ever had to score.’”Defenders became “more fearful” as James expanded his game, Rivers said.“When LeBron first started, you wanted to take away his right hand. His drive. His attacks to the basket,” Rivers said. “You actually would sag off and give him shots. Then he started going both ways with the ball, which made it more difficult to guard. Then he got the in-between game.”The Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo, one of the league’s best defenders, said James was “like a computer.”“He’s calculating everything that is going on at a rapid speed,” Adebayo said. “So it would be like you typing normally and you got somebody on, like, Excel saying it to the computer and the computer is just reading what they’re saying and just typing it.”Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat, right, described James as a “computer” because of how quickly he can outsmart opponents on the court.Kim Klement/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJames is known for his savvy, but also for his strength.“His area of attack is at the top of the floor,” said Mike Brown, who coached James for five seasons in Cleveland. “Everybody knows it, but nobody can stop it.”Diana Taurasi, who holds the W.N.B.A.’s career scoring record, said James was “probably still the most dangerous man in transition.”Gooden said he “took it for granted” that he had played with James. That is, until 2008, when Cleveland traded Gooden to Chicago and he tried to make the Cavaliers regret it the first time he faced off with James.“I jumped right in LeBron’s way, and it was like a freight train hit me,” Gooden said. “He came across with two elbows. All his elbows went across my face. Basically, he got an and-one. And I came out of the smoke with a bloody, busted lip. And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s what everybody’s been having to deal with.’”More passer than scorer?James’s points are often an afterthought to his skill as a passer.“He never set out to be a scoring leader,” Golden State forward Draymond Green said. “He’s never been viewed as a scorer. I think that’s more impressive than anything.”James passed Magic Johnson for sixth on the career assists list in December and passed Mark Jackson and Steve Nash to become fourth in January.Jeff Green, who was James’s Cavaliers teammate in 2017-18, said James’s passing “allowed me to get a lot of buckets.”James has led the league in assists only once, in the 2019-20 season. But Erik Spoelstra, who coached James to two championships with the Heat, said he believed that James could have done it any time he wanted to.James has said he thinks of himself as a passer more than a scorer. He rose to No. 4 on the career assists list in January.Barton Silverman/The New York Times“The skill that I thought was most fascinating with him, with his size and skill and his vision, is his passing,” Spoelstra said.Some think the most momentous play of James’s career wasn’t even on offense.Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said: “In terms of memorable, it’s not points he has scored. It’s his chase-down block of Andre in the finals.”Late in Game 7 of the 2016 N.B.A. finals against Golden State, James, then with Cleveland, flashed the length of the court to block a crucial shot by Andre Iguodala, helping the Cavaliers complete an improbable championship run.“I never got mad about that,” Iguodala said. “Like, people think it hurts me when they say, ‘You got blocked by LeBron.’ That was an amazing play. Even in real time, I was like, ‘Geez, bro, that was incredible.’ ”‘A grown man playing among kids’During James’s rookie year, he averaged fewer than three 3-point attempts a game. Last season, he averaged eight a game — a reflection of the N.B.A.’s shift to emphasize 3-point shooting and his willingness to go with the tide. It’s also a reflection of graceful aging to preserve his legs.Abdul-Jabbar rarely missed games because of injury and James largely had not either, until recent seasons with the Lakers. James is known for a diligent diet and exercise regimen that has allowed him to stretch his career and remain dominant past the typical N.B.A. retirement age.“The reward for doing that is he’s a grown man playing among kids now,” Gooden said.As James’s game has drifted toward the perimeter, his drives to the basket — and the foul shots they often draw — have become less common. Instead, he’s become a better shooter, with more of his points coming from 3-point range.Still, Silver said he had always been struck by “the sheer force of his dunks.”In 2012, when James was with the Heat, he jumped over the 5-foot-11 John Lucas III for a dunk against Chicago.“It happened so fast that I didn’t know he actually jumped over me until it was on the Jumbotron and we called the timeout and the crowd was going crazy,” said Lucas, who was an assistant coach on James’s Lakers team last season. “My phone was blowing up at halftime.”James dunked over the head of Chicago Bulls guard John Lucas III in 2012.Wilfredo Lee/Associated PressLucas even has a picture of himself getting dunked on hanging in his house.“That picture is going to be in the Hall of Fame,” Lucas said. “I have a great sense of humor.”Malik Monk, who played with James on the Lakers last season, said he often teased Lucas about the dunk. “He said he wanted to punch him,” Monk said.James has spent a career making once-in-a-lifetime athleticism look casual, which is why his career-best 61-point performance against the Charlotte Hornets in 2014 seemingly blends in with last season’s 56-point explosion against Curry and Golden State, not to mention his scoring at least 40 points against every N.B.A. team.But James’s greatness is far from casual. He has been a symbol of consistent dominance for decades — just as Abdul-Jabbar was. When James entered the league straight from high school, he did so with unprecedented hype. He had already been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. His high school games were on national television.As Rivers put it: “LeBron is one of the few people in the history of sports to overachieve from a position that was impossible to overachieve.”Decades later, perhaps the most remarkable fact about James’s career is that his scoring at age 38 is at least as good as it’s ever been — meaning the story of his offensive prowess has not been fully written. More

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      Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Is Greater Than Any Basketball Record

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      His N.B.A. career scoring record has been broken, but his legacy of activism and his expansion of Black athlete identity endure.Some athletes live swaddled in their greatness, and that is enough. Others not only master their sport but also expand the possibilities — in competition and away from it — for generations to come. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did just that, including for LeBron James, who has laid claim to the N.B.A. career scoring record that Abdul-Jabbar had held so tight for nearly 39 years.It is easy to forget now, in today’s digitized world where week-old events are relegated to the historical dustbin, how much of a force Abdul-Jabbar was as a player and cultural bellwether. How, as the civil rights movement heated to a boil in the 1960s and then simmered over the ensuing decade, Abdul-Jabbar, a Black man who had adopted a Muslim name, played under the hot glare of a white American public that strained to accept him or see him as relatable.It is easy to forget because he helped make it easier for others, like James, to trace his path. That is what will always keep his name among the greats of sport, no matter how many of his records fall.Guided by the footsteps of Jackie Robinson and Bill Russell, Abdul-Jabbar pushed forward, stretching the limits of Black athlete identity. He was, among other qualities, brash and bookish, confident and shy, awkward, aggressive, graceful — and sometimes an immense pain to deal with. He could come off as simultaneously square and the smoothest, coolest cat in the room.In other words, he was a complete human being, not just the go-along-to-get-along, one-dimensional Black athlete much of America would have preferred him to be.James has run with the branding concept that he is “More Than an Athlete.” Fifty-plus years ago, Abdul-Jabbar, basketball’s brightest young star, was already living that ideal.“He is more than a basketball player,” a Milwaukee newspaper columnist wrote during Abdul-Jabbar’s early years as a pro. “He is an intelligent, still maturing man, who realizes some of the individual and collective frailties of human beings, including himself.”James’s ability to make a cultural impact off the court is the fruit of the trees Abdul-Jabbar planted decades ago.Abdul-Jabbar, front right, was one of the prominent Black athletes at the Cleveland Summit in June 1967, with Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics, front left; the boxer Muhammad Ali, front row, second from left; and the N.F.L. star Jim Brown, front row, second from right.Getty ImagesAs a star at the basketball powerhouse U.C.L.A. in June 1967, a 20-year-old Abdul-Jabbar was the only collegian with the football legend Jim Brown at the Cleveland Summit, a meeting of prominent Black athletes who gathered in support of Muhammad Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War.The next year Abdul-Jabbar shunned the Summer Olympics to protest American prejudice. “America is not my home,” he said in a televised interview. “I just live here.”In those days, Harry Edwards, now a University of California, Berkeley, sociology professor emeritus, led a new wave of Black athletes in protests against American racism. Abdul-Jabbar was a vital part of that push. He also converted to Islam to embrace his Black African heritage, and changed his name from Lew Alcindor to Kareem (generous) Abdul (servant of Allah) Jabbar (powerful).“You have to understand the context,” Edwards told me recently. “We’re still arguing over whether Black lives matter. Well, back then, Black lives absolutely did not matter. In that time, when you said ‘America,’ that was code for ‘white folks.’ So, how do those folks identify with a Black athlete who says I am a Muslim, I believe in Allah, that is what I give my allegiance to? They didn’t, and they let him know.”Edwards added: “What Kareem did was seen as a betrayal of the American ideal. He risked his life.”Black athletes still face backlash for standing up to racism, but their voices are more potent, and their sway is mightier now because of Black legends like Ali, Robinson, Russell and Abdul-Jabbar.You saw their imprint when James wore a T-shirt that said “I Can’t Breathe” for Eric Garner, or a hoodie for Trayvon Martin, or when he joined an N.B.A. work stoppage for Jacob Blake. When right-wing pundits attack James and his peers for protesting, remember that Abdul-Jabbar has been in the hot seat, too.The message here isn’t “Been there, done that, don’t need to hear it anymore.” No, that’s not it at all.What I am saying is this: No one rises alone.In this moment of basketball celebration for James, think about what he shares on the court with the 7-foot-2 center whose record he is taking: a foundation of transcendent, game-changing talent.Nowadays, a younger generation might know Abdul-Jabbar mainly as the sharp-eyed commentator and columnist on the internet — or simply as the guy whose name they had to scroll past in the record books to get to James’s. But his revolutionary prowess as a player can never be diminished.He led U.C.L.A. to three national titles in his three years of eligibility, his teams accumulating a scorched-earth record of 88-2. Along the way, the N.C.A.A. banned dunking, a move many believe was made to hinder his dominance, and U.C.L.A. came to be known as the University of California at Lew Alcindor.Abdul-Jabbar’s signature shot was the sky hook, which no one else has been able to perform quite like him.Rich Clarkson/NCAA Photos, via Getty ImagesSoon, there he was, dominating the N.B.A. with his lithe quickness and a singular, iconic shot: the sky hook. Athletic beauty incarnate.The balletic rise from the glistening hardwood; the arm extended high, holding the ball well above the rim; the easy tip of the wrist, as if pouring tea into a cup, while he let the ball fly.Swish.In his second professional year, he was named the N.B.A.’s most valuable player — the first of a record six such awards.That season, he led the fledgling Milwaukee Bucks to the 1971 N.B.A. championship. It would be the first of his six titles, two more than James.The pressure he was under as a player was immense for most of his career.He said he faced death threats after boycotting the 1968 Olympics.A phalanx of that era’s reporters, almost all of them white men, failed to understand Abdul-Jabbar and took to pat, easy criticism. He did himself no favors, responding by essentially turning his back, often literally, on many of them.He also absorbed blow after blow on the court. Fights were frequent then. Sometimes it was too much, and he snapped.He contained the multitudes, all right. Aggressive frustration included.As the years passed, Abdul-Jabbar evolved. He grew happier, less strident, more content and more open. His advocacy came to focus on human rights for all who are marginalized.And ultimately, fans who once held him with disregard began to warm up.Abdul-Jabbar’s jersey was retired at a ceremony on April 24, 1993, in Milwaukee. He spent six seasons with the Bucks.John Biever/NBAE, via Getty ImagesLeBron James now holds the crown as the league’s greatest scorer with 38,390 points. Well earned. He remains something to behold at age 38. Still, his Lakers are so disjointed they would need Abdul-Jabbar in his prime to make a serious run at an N.B.A. title this year.Then again, Abdul-Jabbar at 38 would work. That Abdul-Jabbar, in the 1985 postseason, took his championship series lumps during a Game 1 loss to Boston and then came back as if launched from a Bel-Air springboard.He ripped off a string of the finest games of his career, grabbing the championship trophy and the finals M.V.P. Award.There has never been a finals series run like that from a player with as many miles on the legs.It was just another way that Abdul-Jabbar stretched the meaning of greatness in the N.B.A., leaving the next generation and James to expand it even further.Sheelagh McNeill More

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      Like a Record, LeBron James’s Age Is Just a High Number

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      Still among the best players in the N.B.A. at 38, James is now 36 points away from the league’s career scoring record. He could break it at home on Tuesday.NEW ORLEANS — LeBron James headed into Saturday night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans needing 63 points to break the N.B.A. career scoring record. It was a large number for anyone to reach in a single game, especially a 38-year-old in his 20th N.B.A. season.And yet spectators wearing purple-and-gold jerseys and T-shirts displaying James’s No. 6 flooded Canal and Bourbon Streets ahead of Saturday’s game, and then they piled into the Smoothie King Center, most of them hoping to witness N.B.A. history.Larry Unrein, a New York native who traveled to three of the Lakers’ last four games, came to New Orleans a day after his 40th birthday, hoping for a belated gift.“He could break it, dude,” Unrein said before the game. “He’s 38, and he’s playing like he’s 24. I turned 40 yesterday and aspire to take care of my body, drink tons of water and stretch.” Unrein, who skateboards in his free time, said James was inspiring him to skate into old age.An employee at the arena named Anita, who would not give her last name but said she had been working there for 10 years, was nervous that the record might be broken on the Pelicans’ home floor. “We can’t let him do it here,” she said. “It ain’t about the King tonight.”No one, really, should have thought that James, at this point in his career, would score 63 points on Saturday. (His career high is 61 points, in a game against Charlotte in 2014.) But James has provided many miracles in his career. That he is competing at such a high level at 38 seems to be just one more — a feat that is altering perceptions of athletic limits and athletic primes.James fell short of the scoring record on Saturday, finishing with 27 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists, and the Lakers (25-29) lost to the Pelicans (27-27), 131-126. James is now 36 points away from passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who scored 38,387 points from 1969 to 1989, and tickets for the Lakers’ home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night have soared in anticipation that James will break the record then.On Saturday, James made plays that explained why many supporters will always believe that another miracle is on its way. He played 40 minutes, more than any of his teammates. It was the third time in his last four games that he played at least 40 minutes, a figure, he said, that was “catching up to him.”“I’m tired as hell,” he said after the game. “But I’ll be ready to go on Tuesday.”“I think it’s historic on a lot of different levels,” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said earlier this season. “For him to be at this point of his career and still able to produce at the level in which he’s producing, I just think all of us, just really being able to witness it, be a part of it — it shows his competitive spirit, his no-quit mentality.”A moment of “How is LeBron doing this at this age?” came in the third quarter, with the Lakers leading by 7 and forward Herbert Jones barreling toward the rim. James took a charge, flying onto his back from the impact of Jones’s crashing into him. Many N.B.A. players, especially stars and older players, are reluctant to take a charge, given the risk of injury or, more simply, the wear and tear on the body over a long season. Even Kobe Bryant, who was known for his toughness and mentality when he played for the Lakers, was publicly against taking charges.Bryant’s reasoning was that great players such as Scottie Pippen and Larry Bird were injured after taking many charges throughout their careers, while others, including Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, didn’t take charges and avoided significant long-term injuries.But there was James, nearly 40, taking a charge on a player listed at 6 feet 7 inches and 206 pounds.James plunged into the crowd after diving for a loose ball.Emily Kask for The New York TimesWith just under three minutes remaining in Saturday’s game and the Lakers losing by 4, James dived for a ball heading out of bounds, launching himself above courtside fans. It was the second time he had done so in recent weeks. He did not save the ball, but players of his age and status would be excused for not even making the effort. James would not excuse himself: There he was, his blue-and-pink shoes among the fans’ faces in the crowd.“I think it inspires them out there to do their jobs,” Ham said this season about the impact of James’s play on his teammates.James aggressively attacked the basket throughout the night, bumping and fighting through fouls to make layups and sprinting past players for scores. On multiple occasions, younger teammates passed up layup opportunities to give the ball to their much older, but somehow much more explosive, teammate, who threw down dunks that ignited fans, many who wore his jersey and some who wore New Orleans colors.James was not perfect. He often settled for 3-point shots, including an off-balance one late in the game, which he missed and seemed foolish to take. He finished 1 for 7 from long range. Defensively, he, like his teammates, did little to stop the Pelicans’ 42-point barrage in the third quarter, which sparked their win.As James went to the free-throw line with 18 seconds left and the Lakers losing by 6, he missed his first attempt. If the game wasn’t over already, it was effectively over after that.But Anita, the stadium worker, wasn’t buying it. She thought James was too good to miss a free throw. This had to be part of a script: “He’s just doing that,” she said, “so he could get that record in L.A.” More

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      LeBron James Keeps the World Watching

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      LeBron James sat in the visitors locker room at Madison Square Garden with ice on his 38-year-old knees and 28 more points to his name after his Los Angeles Lakers beat the Knicks in overtime. James’s teammate Anthony Davis teased him about how close he was to breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s N.B.A. career scoring record, then about 90 points away.Suddenly, James remembered something. His mother, Gloria James, was set to go on vacation soon. She might miss his record-breaking game.He called her on speakerphone, with a dozen attentive reporters close by. He asked when she was leaving, reminding her every once in a while, lest she disclose too much, that reporters could hear the conversation. Eventually, he looked around, sheepishly, and said he would call her later.“I love you,” he said. Then, just before he ended the call, he added: “I love you more.”It was typical James: He brings you along for the ride, but on his terms, revealing what he wants to reveal and no more. It is perhaps the only way someone who has been so famous for most of his life could survive the machine of modern celebrity.As he has closed in on Abdul-Jabbar’s record of 38,387 points, the very idea of what it means to be a star has shifted since James scored his first two points on Oct. 29, 2003. And James has helped define that shift. He has risen above the din of social media celebrities and 24-hour news cycles, buoyed by the basketball fans who love him or love to hate him.James, at age 38, is closing in on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s N.B.A. career scoring record while playing with the energy of a much younger version of himself.Ashley Landis/Associated PressHe has been a selfie-snapping tour guide for this journey, with a portfolio that now extends well beyond the court. He has a production company and a show on HBO. He’s acted in a few movies and received some good reviews. His foundation has helped hundreds of students in his hometown Akron, Ohio, and a public school the foundation helps run there, the I Promise School, focuses on children who struggle academically. His opinions are covered as news, given far more weight than those of almost any other athlete.“Hopefully I made an impact enough so people appreciate what I did, and still appreciate what I did off the floor as well, even when I’m done,” James said in an interview. “But I don’t live for that. I live for my family, for my friends and my community that needs that voice.”Basketball Is the ‘Main Thing’In early 2002, James was a high school junior and on the cover of Sports Illustrated. News didn’t travel as quickly as it does now. Not everyone had cellphones, and the ones they had couldn’t livestream videos of whatever anyone did. Social media meant chat rooms on AOL or Yahoo. Facebook had yet to launch, and the deluge of social networking apps was years away.“Thank God I didn’t have social media; that’s all I can say,” James said in October when asked to reflect on his entry into the league.As a teenage star, he was spared the incessant gaze of social media and the bullying and harsh criticism that most likely would have come with it.But social media, in its many changing forms, has also helped people express their personalities and share their lives with others. It lets them define themselves — something particularly useful for public figures whose stories get told one way or another.James began thinking about that early in his career.His media and production firm, now called the SpringHill Company, made a documentary about James and his high school teammates titled “More Than a Game” in 2008. It also developed “The Shop,” an HBO show James sometimes appears on with celebrity guests, including the former President Barack Obama and the rapper Travis Scott, talking like friends in a barbershop.James has built a portfolio of movies and television shows that have expanded his influence beyond basketball.Coley Brown for The New York TimesJames likes to say that he always keeps “the main thing the main thing” — meaning that no matter what else is happening in his life, he prioritizes basketball. He honors the thing that created his fame.He led his teams to the N.B.A. finals in eight consecutive years and won championships with three different franchises. He was chosen for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award four times, and he has dished the fourth-most assists in N.B.A. history.James’s talent meant it didn’t take long for him to become the face of the N.B.A. He has mostly embraced that, capitalizing on an era when sports fandom was no longer about sitting down to watch a game so much as it was about catching small bites of the most compelling moments.“People’s interest in athletes moves very quickly, especially with the N.B.A. season,” said Omar Raja, who in 2014 founded House of Highlights, an Instagram account for viral sports moments, because he wanted to share clips of the Miami Heat during James’s time playing there with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.“LeBron’s Instagram stories would do as well as his poster dunks, and you were like, ‘This is crazy,’” Raja said.House of Highlights reposted two videos from James’s Instagram stories in May 2019. One showed James and a former teammate dancing in a yard. Another showed James and friends, including Russell Westbrook, smoking cigars. Both videos outperformed anything that happened in the playoffs.‘I Wish I Could Do Normal Things’James has used his fame to further business opportunities and build his financial portfolio. He has used it to both shield his children and prepare them for growing up in his shadow.He has used it for social activism, most notably in speaking about Black civil rights and racism. That began in 2012, when he and his Heat teammates wore hooded sweatshirts and posted a group photo on social media after the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager who was wearing a hoodie when he was shot and killed in Florida. The Heat decided to transfer some of their spotlight to the national conversation about racism that emerged.James wearing Eric Garner’s words “I Can’t Breathe” at a pregame warm up in 2014. Garner, a Black man, died after the police in New York put him a chokehold.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesBlack N.B.A. players have a long history of speaking out or demonstrating against racism and discrimination: Abdul-Jabbar and the Boston Celtics’ Bill Russell were vocal about the racist dangers they faced in the 1960s and ’70s. But what made the actions of James and his teammates stand out was that the superstar athletes of the ’90s and early 2000s — Michael Jordan, most notably — had often shied away from overt activism.What James chooses to talk about (or not talk about) draws notice.In 2019, when a Houston Rockets executive angered the Chinese government by expressing support for Hong Kong, James was criticized for not speaking out against China’s human rights abuses. James said he did not know enough to talk about them, but some skeptics accused him of avoiding the subject to protect his financial interests in China.And in 2020, when protests swept the country after the police killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both of whom were Black, the N.B.A. made social justice part of its ethos. James used many of his news conferences that season to discuss racism and police violence against Black people.The attention to James’s words separates him from others, as does the attention to his life.“I don’t want to say it ever becomes too much, but there are times when I wish I could do normal things,” James said Thursday while standing in an arena hallway in Indianapolis about an hour after the Lakers beat the Pacers there. A member of a camera crew that has been following him for the past few years filmed him as he spoke.“I wish I could just walk outside,” James said. “I wish I could just, like, walk into a movie theater and sit down and go to the concession stand and get popcorn. I wish I could just go to an amusement park just like regular people. I wish I could go to Target sometimes and walk into Starbucks and have my name on the cup just like regular people.”He added: “I’m not sitting here complaining about it, of course not. But it can be challenging at times.”James grew up without stable housing or much money, but his life now is not like most people’s because of the money he has made through basketball and business (he’s estimated to be worth more than $1 billion), and because of the extraordinary athletic feats he makes look so easy. Once in a while, as when he’s on the phone with his mother, he manages to come off like just another guy.James speaks at the opening ceremony for the I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, in 2018.Phil Long/Associated PressAnother example: In October 2018, during his first Lakers training camp, James gave up wine as part of a preseason diet regimen. He was asked if abstaining had affected his body.“Yeah, it made me want wine more,” James said, relatably. “But I feel great. I feel great. I did a two-week cleanse and gave up a lot of things for 14 days.”James had also quit gluten, dairy, artificial sugars and all alcohol for those two weeks, he said.What was left?“In life?” James said. “Air.”There to See HimThe past few seasons have been challenging for James on the court. He is playing as well as he ever has, but the Lakers have struggled since winning a championship in 2020.They missed the playoffs last season and are in 12th place in the Western Conference, though they have played better recently. James, his coaches and his teammates all insist that he spends more time thinking about how to get the Lakers into the playoffs than about breaking the scoring record.Still, Madison Square Garden, one of his favorite arenas, buzzed on Tuesday night. Because of him.Celebrities, fans and media came to watch him, just as they did when he was a constant in the N.B.A. finals.He taped a pregame interview with Michael Strahan courtside. Then he went through his pregame warm-up, shooting from different spots on the court, working against an assistant coach, who tried to defend him. He took a few seconds to dance near the 3-point line as he waited for someone to pass the ball back to him.He was in what he’s made into a comfortable place: the center of the basketball universe. More

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      Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Was the ‘Best Weapon in Basketball’

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      Everyone knew he was close to surpassing Wilt Chamberlain’s career scoring record in 1984. Opponents still couldn’t stop him.Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still a couple of months from breaking the N.B.A.’s career scoring record, but Mark Eaton of the Utah Jazz had been crunching the numbers, and he was worried — for himself.Eaton had determined that Abdul-Jabbar could eclipse the record when his Los Angeles Lakers faced the Jazz on April 5, 1984 — in Las Vegas, oddly enough — and guess who would probably get the defensive assignment as Abdul-Jabbar chased one of basketball’s greatest feats?“I don’t want to be in that picture!” Eaton told Swen Nater, a friend who was playing for the Lakers that season and who recalled their conversation in a recent interview.For 15 seasons, first with the Milwaukee Bucks and later as the Lakers’ impassive captain, Abdul-Jabbar had been drop-stepping and sky-hooking his way toward history — and no one, not even Eaton, a 7-foot-4 shot-blocking maestro who died in 2021, could prevent any of it from happening.In recent weeks, LeBron James of the Lakers has been on his own inexorable march, thrilling crowds and mowing through defenders as he gets closer to overtaking Abdul-Jabbar’s record, an achievement that once seemed untouchable.For Abdul-Jabbar, 75, the hubbub over his pursuit of Wilt Chamberlain’s scoring record nearly 39 years ago was little more than a distraction in the final weeks of the 1983-84 regular season, teammates said. The Lakers wanted to win another championship.“One thing that he didn’t really like to do was talk about himself,” said Mitch Kupchak, a teammate of his for five seasons before he joined the Lakers’ front office in 1986. “I think he just wanted to get it over with.”There was one player who wanted to talk about the record: Magic Johnson, the team’s All-Star point guard.“I’m making the pass,” Johnson told teammates, according to guard Byron Scott. “I’m throwing it to Cap for him to break the record.”Nater, 73, who was Abdul-Jabbar’s backup, joked that he tried to help out at practice in his own way in the days leading up to the April 5 game.“I basically let him score on me,” Nater said, deadpan. “I’d pat him on the butt and say, ‘Nice shot, Kareem.’ Or tell him to maybe follow through a little more with his wrist on the sky hook. I just wanted to build him up a little.”It was one of 11 home games for the Jazz in Las Vegas that season as the team’s owner sought to build a fan base there. And even though the Jazz were solid — they would advance to the Western Conference semifinals — would-be fans did not exactly flee their slot machines and flock to the Thomas and Mack Center to watch Adrian Dantley, Rickey Green and Darrell Griffith.Abdul-Jabbar used his signature shot, the sky hook, to break Wilt Chamberlain’s career scoring record in 1984.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesTheir game against the Lakers in April drew 18,389 fans — the largest for a Jazz “home” game since the team had relocated from New Orleans before the start of the 1979-80 season. The Jazz had no illusions about their role in the game being such a hot ticket. History was happening.“I don’t think anybody thought that they were going to stop him from scoring,” Dantley said. “No one has ever stopped the best weapon in basketball.”Before the game, the crowd gave Abdul-Jabbar a 45-second standing ovation, according to an account in The New York Times. Abdul-Jabbar, who needed 22 points to break Chamberlain’s record of 31,419 career points, expressed his appreciation by flashing a double thumbs-up, then went about his familiar business of leading the Lakers to another win.He scored 16 points in the first half. But even as the Lakers built a big lead in the third quarter, Abdul-Jabbar resisted forcing shots and consistently passed out of traps. A 12-footer along the baseline gave him 18 points for the game. By the start of the fourth quarter, the game was so out of reach that Frank Layden, the coach of the Jazz, began removing his key players to preserve them for the playoffs.But Abdul-Jabbar was so close to the record that he re-entered the game, and he tied Chamberlain when James Worthy passed to him for a dunk. The next assist needed to belong to Johnson, and when Johnson passed out of trouble to Bob McAdoo, one of the Lakers’ reserves, his teammates shouted at McAdoo to pass it back to Johnson.“Magic almost ran up and grabbed it,” Scott said, laughing at the memory.Bob Hansen, a first-year guard for the Jazz that season, was guarding Johnson and made the unconventional decision to give him a little space to make an entry pass to Abdul-Jabbar on the right block.“Didn’t want to really get in the way of history,” Hansen said.Hansen’s teammates had other ideas. Eaton and Green tried to double-team the 7-2 Abdul-Jabbar, but he took one dribble, pivoted to his right, then spun to his left to rise for a sky hook over Eaton, who had been dreading such a moment. Chick Hearn, the longtime play-by-play announcer for the Lakers, rejoiced when the ball splashed through the hoop.“The new king of scoring has ascended his throne,” Hearn said on the broadcast as Abdul-Jabbar’s teammates embraced him. “This man has accomplished something that I don’t believe — and I mean this sincerely — I don’t think this will ever happen again.”As reporters, photographers and dignitaries swarmed Abdul-Jabbar, Hansen waded through the mass of humanity with the ball in his hands. He found Abdul-Jabbar near midcourt.“I said: ‘Here you go, big fella, here’s the ball. Do you want the ball?’ He was like: ‘Yeah! Thanks, little man,’” said Hansen, who is 6-6. “And he patted me on the head.”Abdul-Jabbar acknowledged the crowd, thanked his teammates and hugged his parents, Cora and Al Alcindor.Abdul-Jabbar, right, talking to David Stern, who was the N.B.A. commissioner, after breaking the record.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty Images“His father, Mr. Alcindor, was very stoic,” Scott said. “He was an ex-cop in New York, so he was tough. It was probably the first time that I saw him give Kareem a hug. You could tell he was very proud, his mother was very proud.”Abdul-Jabbar was subbed out of the game and replaced by Kupchak.“That’s my claim to fame,” said Kupchak, 68, now the general manager and president of basketball operations for the Charlotte Hornets. “Put in the mop sweeper.”Chamberlain did not attend the game, but he came to a ceremony that the Lakers held at home the next day before they played the Kansas City Kings.In Las Vegas, the visiting locker room was so packed with reporters and photographers after Abdul-Jabbar broke the record that Scott tried to escape as quickly as he could.And while the Jazz did not enjoy losing that night, many players are still proud to have played a small role in basketball history, and to have witnessed a record that has stood for decades.“You do kind of appreciate the fact that you’re on the court with a legend,” said Thurl Bailey, a longtime power forward for the Jazz.Bailey has particularly warm feelings for Abdul-Jabbar. Earlier that season, Bailey, who was a rookie, emerged from the locker room at halftime of a game against the Lakers wearing an eye patch after Worthy had inadvertently scratched him. Abdul-Jabbar pulled Bailey aside and showed him his goggles.“Young fella, you need to get you some of these,” Bailey recalled Abdul-Jabbar telling him. “And I tried them and loved them and they worked. He was always nice to me.”When Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1989 after 20 seasons and six championships, his point total was so high — and he was such a singular talent, with the durability to match — that few thought anyone would rival it.But about eight months after Abdul-Jabbar’s record-setting game against the Jazz, something else happened: LeBron James was born. More

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      LeBron James Closes In on Scoring Record With Triple-Double

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      A triple double in an overtime win emphasized that James, who is on the verge of passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career points total, is nowhere near done.Very soon now, LeBron James will have scored more points in the N.B.A. than any player ever.He closed in further on the record on Tuesday night with a team-high 28 points as his Los Angeles Lakers beat the Knicks, 129-123, in overtime.It was James’s first appearance at Madison Square Garden in three years after missing last season’s visit by the Lakers because of a suspension and the game the season before with an injury.James has scored 38,299 points in regular-season play, leaving him 89 points away from surpassing the record held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan round out the top five. The top active player behind James is Kevin Durant in 14th place, lagging by more than 11,000 points.James is averaging 30.2 points a game this season. Should he score 30 at Indiana on Thursday and at New Orleans on Saturday, he would need 29 points on Feb. 7 at home against Oklahoma City to break the record. Failing that, the record would be very likely to fall in his next game on Feb. 9 at home against Milwaukee.Of course, a player as great as James is seldom just a scorer, and he showed that on Tuesday night, by recording a triple double, with 10 rebounds and 11 assists.In addition to his scoring exploits, James moved into fourth on the career assists list. Elsa/Getty ImagesIt was less noticed, but on Tuesday night James also moved into fourth place on the career assists list, behind only the crack passers John Stockton, Jason Kidd and Chris Paul.“That’s what I love to do, get my guys involved, try to put the ball on time and on target with my guys throughout the course of my career,” James said after the game.James also ranks 32nd in rebounds, ninth in steals and ninth in 3-pointers made. He has been selected to six all-defensive teams.And even at age 38, he is clearly nowhere near done. He will surpass the points record soon. But might he go on to obliterate it?Honestly, it is probably up to him. He would still be a valuable player for any team in the league and could be for several more years at least. He may decide to hang up his sneakers at or near the top of his game. But if he chooses to stick around for late-career play a bit below his best, as Jordan did with Washington, for example, he could put the points record far out of sight.Abdul-Jabbar played full time through age 41. His averages for his final four years were 23, 18, 15 and 10 points a game. A similar falloff for James from his average of 30 might have him averaging 25, 22 and 17 the next three years.Because of some injuries over the last three seasons, James has appeared in roughly 70 percent of his team’s games. If that holds, he would average 57 games a season. Using those estimates, he would add more than 3,500 more points to his already formidable total and wind up with perhaps 42,000 points. “I’m going to be in this league at least a few more years,” he said on Tuesday.And those estimates are fairly conservative. His scoring might not fall off as quickly as Abdul-Jabbar’s did. He may be able to play more than 57 games a season. And he may decide to play more than three more years. James could well wind up with a total that will take something superhuman to surpass.Certainly he showed few concessions to age on Tuesday night, whether hitting a 3, driving the lane or making a layup with 20 seconds left in overtime to seal the win. He played a team-high 43 minutes, and ranks ninth this season in the league in minutes per game, hardly the sign of a player slowing down anytime soon.James will be the first to say that winning games matters more than individual statistics. While he has won four titles, most recently in 2020, this season the Lakers are on the outside of the playoffs. While he will be lauded when he does break the record, his primary focus is on turning his team around.Asked how much he thought about the scoring record during games he replied: “Not at all. I didn’t get to this point in my career by thinking about records or how many points I have.”He added: “Maybe when I get super-duper close, maybe it will be at the back of my mind or the front of my mind. But I never put that type of pressure on myself. I just go and play.” More

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      LeBron James Is Reminded in Boston That a Career Is Not All Glory

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      James drew closer to the N.B.A. career scoring record ahead of games in New York, but the Celtics proved again why they have been one of his great adversaries over the past 20 years.BOSTON — LeBron James was warming up for the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night when an old foe wearing shamrock-themed pajama pants strode onto the court to greet him. Paul Pierce, the former Celtics star, embraced James, who got a kick out of Pierce’s outfit.It was a warm moment that lacked any sort of discernible shelf life. A few seconds later, James appeared on the arena’s giant video screens. Several thousand early-arriving fans booed him.With LeBronapalooza revving into high gear as James approaches the N.B.A. career scoring record, his trip to Boston was a reminder of some of the less glamorous stuff — the tight games and controversial calls, the fraught rivalries and hostile crowds — that has filled out his career, shaping him and motivating him. And the Celtics have been right there throughout, providing paint for his canvas.Saturday’s game was another doozy. The Celtics’ 125-121 victory in overtime came after James justifiably felt that he had been fouled on a layup attempt at the end of regulation. A foul call would have sent him to the free throw line with a chance to win it. Instead, the officials missed it. James yelled and protested and fell to his knees. Then he seethed at his locker after another loss by the Lakers (23-27) in a season full of them.“I don’t get it,” he said. “I’m attacking the paint just as much as any of the other guys in this league that’s getting double-digit free throws a night. I don’t get it. I don’t understand it.”The messy end obscured another enormous effort by James, who finished with 41 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists. (He was 5 for 6 from the free throw line.) And it is worth emphasizing: He is regularly posting numbers like those at 38 years old, the third-oldest player in the N.B.A.Ahead of the Lakers’ trip to New York for games against the Nets on Monday and the Knicks on Tuesday, James has now scored 38,271 career points, putting him 117 points away from eclipsing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record.It is a number so large that it defies belief, a number so large that it can be difficult to conceptualize. James has scored against defenders who have long since retired, in arenas that no longer exist.How about this? When James faced the Celtics on Saturday, it had been 19 years 2 months 14 days since his first regular-season game in Boston. That game was on Nov. 14, 2003, back when TD Garden was known as the Fleet Center, when James was an 18-year-old rookie with the Cleveland Cavaliers and nine games into his career. It was also when Jayson Tatum — now the face of the Celtics — was 5.James has been averaging 30 points a game this season. In Boston on Saturday night, he had 41 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesJames struggled in that game, a narrow loss, scoring just 10 points to increase his career total at the time to 146. Vin Baker played 36 minutes that day for the Celtics, while Zydrunas Ilgauskas led the Cavaliers with 22 points. For James, it was an inauspicious opening act ahead of two decades of tussling with the Celtics.By now, each team in the league can cite moments (plural) when James did something to destroy the collective morale of its highly paid employees. A fast-break dunk that sealed a win. A long jumper that clinched a playoff series. A pass, a defensive stop, a blocked shot.The Celtics may be able to cite more of those moments than most teams. Consider that James has won five straight playoff series against them, dating to 2011. But as a much younger player with the Cavaliers, James was stymied by them. The Celtics of the Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen era had savvy and experience, and they bounced the Cavaliers from the playoffs in 2008 and 2010.Their series in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals may have changed the arc of the league. After the Cavaliers were eliminated, James removed his jersey before he reached the visiting locker room.“A friend of mine told me, ‘I guess you’ve got to go through a lot of nightmares before you realize your dream,’” he said at the time. “That’s what’s going on for me individually right now.”James thought he had been fouled by Tatum on the final play in regulation. No foul was called, and the Lakers lost in overtime.Michael Dwyer/Associated PressAbout two months later, James emerged from a luxury vehicle at the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich, Conn., to announce in a televised special that he was joining the Miami Heat as a free agent.The new-look Heat proceeded to eliminate the Celtics from the playoffs in 2011 and again in 2012, after a seven-game scrap in the conference finals. That year, the Celtics were actually home for Game 6 with a chance to clinch the series. Before the game, Doc Rivers, who was then the Celtics’ coach, instructed his players to force James to shoot from the outside. They heeded his message.“The way he was scoring, if you go by a scouting report, was the way we wanted him to score,” Rivers, now the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, said in an interview. “Like, if he had to score, it had to be from the outside. It had to be with the 3-ball. We didn’t feel like he could beat us with that. And he did.”James extended the series by collecting 45 points, 15 rebounds and 5 assists in a lopsided win. He shot 19 of 26 from the field and 2 of 4 from 3-point range.“That,” Rivers said, “was the moment LeBron became a champion.”The Heat went on to win Game 7, and then defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in the N.B.A. finals as James won the first of his four championships.As for roughing up the Celtics, it seemed to become one of James’s favorite pastimes. During his second stint with the Cavaliers, he helped oust the Celtics from the postseason all three times he played them.So perhaps there was some relief in Boston when James decamped for Los Angeles before the start of the 2018-19 season, since it meant the Celtics would see him less often. But it also seemed fitting that he signed with the Lakers, whose rivalry with the Celtics is nearly as old as the league itself.On Saturday, Celtics fans showed up in “Beat L.A.” shirts and jeered every time James touched the ball, which was really just their way of honoring him. The game itself was basketball as theater, same as ever, all the way to the bitter end.Sopan Deb More

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      LeBron James Scoring Tracker: How Close Is He to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Record?

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      The Lakers star is fewer than 200 points away from breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record, which Abdul-Jabbar set before James was born.Since his early days playing basketball, LeBron James has considered himself more of a passer than a scorer. But he has always been dynamic at the rim, and later in his N.B.A. career he developed a shooting touch that made him even more dangerous offensively.Twenty years of perfecting exactly how to attack N.B.A. defenses have brought James to the cusp of a historic achievement that had once seemed almost impossible for anyone to reach.James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, is 178 points away from eclipsing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career total of 38,387. Abdul-Jabbar has been the N.B.A.’s career scoring leader since April 5, 1984 — more than eight months before James was born. Abdul-Jabbar played five more seasons for the Lakers after passing Wilt Chamberlain for that title.As James has approached the record, he has increased his scoring output to 35 points per game in January, up from 28.5 points per game in the season’s first three months. This season and 2021-22 have been two of the highest-scoring of his career. Though it would be difficult, it is possible he could break the record against the Knicks on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, one of his favorite arenas. Four games later, the Lakers will host the Milwaukee Bucks in a game between the two N.B.A. teams for which Abdul-Jabbar played.Lakers ScheduleWednesday vs. San Antonio SpursSaturday @ Boston CelticsMonday @ NetsTuesday @ KnicksFeb. 2 @ Indiana PacersFeb. 4 @ New Orleans PelicansFeb. 7 vs. Oklahoma City ThunderFeb. 9 vs. Milwaukee BucksHere are some of James’s notable performances this season:Jan. 24 vs. Los Angeles Clippers: 46 pointsJames had 46 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists in the Lakers’ loss to the Clippers on Jan. 24. He played 33 minutes and had no turnovers.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe Clippers took a big lead early, and from then on the only facet of the game that seemed to be working for the Lakers was James’s long-range shooting. James made nine 3-pointers, a career high, on 14 attempts.James ended the night with 46 points, making it the first time he’d scored at least 40 points against the Clippers. He is now the first player ever to score at least 40 points in a game against all 30 N.B.A. teams.Despite James’s good night, the Lakers lost, 133-115, leaving James dejected as he sat on the bench at the end of the game.Jan. 16 vs. Houston Rockets: 48 pointsJames had 48 points, 8 rebounds and 9 assists against Houston on Jan. 16. Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Lakers had just come off close losses to the Dallas Mavericks and Philadelphia 76ers and were on a three-game losing streak. James has produced several impressive performances in losses this season, but he enjoys it more when the team wins. This game was his highest scoring this season, and came on the second night of a back-to-back.He also got a reminder of his age when the Houston rookie Jabari Smith Jr. told him during the game that his father had played against him in James’s first N.B.A. game in 2003. At 38, James is one of the oldest players in the league.“I could have very easily took tonight off, but I don’t feel like the momentum of our ball club could use me taking a night off tonight,” James said after the game. “I don’t feel like I wanted to sit on that loss to Philly last night. I kind of wanted to get that out of my taste buds.”Dec. 2 at Milwaukee Bucks: 28 pointsJames had 28 points, 8 rebounds and 11 assists in the Lakers’ win. He has improved as 3-point shooter in his career and hit 3 of 6 against the Bucks.Michael Mcloone/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThis wasn’t one of James’s highest-scoring games, but it was one that showed the Lakers’ potential when they’re at full strength. Anthony Davis was healthy and scored 44 points as the Lakers beat one of the Eastern Conference’s best teams on the road.James’s 11 assists allowed him to pass Magic Johnson for the sixth-most career assists in N.B.A. history. It was also his 900th career win. More