The Los Angeles Lakers were trashed at home by the New Orleans Pelicans Sunday night, 123-95. In the loss, Lakers superstar LeBron James scored 32 points and played a game-high 36 minutes. Fox Sports personality Skip Bayless made mention of that fact, accusing James of padding his stats to continue his chase of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for most points scored in NBA history.
LeBron James, in Year 19, has already played 36 minutes tonight but is still in the game, trailing by 22 with 5:08 left, to stat-pad with easy garbage-time buckets as he chases Kareem's all-time scoring record.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) February 28, 2022
Bayless tweeted “LeBron James, in Year 19, has already played 36 minutes tonight but is still in the game, trailing by 22 with 5:08 left, to stat-pad with easy garbage-time buckets as he chases Kareem's all-time scoring record.”
Incidentally, James came out of the game at that point and did not return.
It was a tough game for LeBron and the Lakers as a whole. James shot the ball very well, going 13 for 23 from the floor. But he committed seven turnovers. One of which drew boos from the Lakers home crowd. Russell Westbrook matched James with seven turnovers as Los Angeles turned it over 23 times total.
Entering Sunday night, James was third on the all-time scoring list with 36,580 points. LeBron is soon to pass Utah Jazz Hall of Famer Karl Malone, who is only a few hundred points ahead of him. Abdul-Jabbar though is almost 2,000 points ahead of James for the most in history with 38,387.
That is a large gap. However, at James' current scoring pace, he would likely catch and pass Abdul-Jabbar late next season. That is assuming LeBron plays in at least 60 games next year. Injuries have begun to finally catch up to one of the game's greatest players, but it appears highly unlikely that he will not surpass the record before he retires.
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