Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James became the NBA\u2019s all-time leading scorer in February of 2023, when he passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with 38,387 total points. That record was previously seen as unbreakable due to Abdul-Jabbar\u2019s longevity, but James has added over two years worth of points since then. <\/p>\n
As of Dec. 22, 2025, LeBron sits at 42,406 points, 4,019 points ahead of the next-highest total. That difference alone is two full seasons of averaging 25 points per game. And that was what L.A. Clippers star James Harden focused on after his recent win over the Lakers. <\/p>\n
Harden recently passed Carmelo Anthony to become the NBA\u2019s 10th leading scorer all-time. But he wouldn\u2019t even entertain the idea of catching up to or passing LeBron, via Tomer Azarly of Clutch Points<\/a>: <\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t even say LeBron in this conversation,\u201d Harden joked. \u201cLeBron is\u2026 Nobody\u2019s \u2014 when we talk about that record \u2014 nobody\u2019s ever catching that. But just to be back out there, I\u2019m not, I only missed one game, but just to be back out there and giving my teammates an opportunity to help them win the game was important for me. So it wasn\u2019t pretty, but we got to win, so we just got to build momentum off this.\u201d<\/p>\n Harden is currently 10th all-time with 28,359 points. He has been in the NBA for 17 years and was, at one time, one of the league\u2019s most prolific scorers. He averaged over 30 points per game in three consecutive seasons and averaged over 29 points per game in five. Over the course of nine seasons from 2012-21, he averaged 29.3 points per game. <\/p>\n And yet, he is still over 14,000 points away from James. He\u2019s in his 17th season at age 36, and would need to average his current 25.8 points per game \u2014 his most in a season since 2019-20 \u2014 for another 544 games to catch LeBron\u2019s current total. That\u2019s over 6.5 seasons if he played 82 games every year.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not even factoring in that James is going to score more points before calling it a career. If Harden, a player with one of the greatest scoring resumes in league history, sits that far away from LeBron, it\u2019s going to be very hard for anyone to pass him up. <\/p>\n Even take James\u2019 teammate in Luka Doncic. He has a 28.9 points per game career average in his eighth season, and has scored 13,594 points. He would need to maintain that average for 82 games per year for over 12 seasons to catch LeBron. <\/p>\n Catching James may simply never happen. But that\u2019s what many thought about Abdul-Jabbar as well. <\/p>\n LeBron James discusses significance of playing Christmas Day<\/p>\n James is set to play his 20th game on Christmas Day in 23 seasons. So he knows more than anyone what it means to be chosen to play on one of the league\u2019s biggest regular season days and he spoke about that<\/a> as the Lakers prepare to play the Houston Rockets. <\/p>\n